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Class ."^jSo^^S-SJ 

Book •_ 

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COF/KICHT DEPOSrr. 



BROKEN MUSIC 



BROKEN MUSIC 

Selected %)erse 
BENJAMIN R; C. LOW 




NEW YORK 
E. p. DUTTON & COMPANY 

681 FIFTH AVENUE 



COPTBIGHT, 1920, 
BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 



AU Rights Reserved 



©CI,A604103 



Printed In the United States of America 



TO 
MY PARTNERS AND FRIENDS 

ETHELBERT I. LOW 

AND 

CHARLES D. MILLER 



Grateful acknowledgment is made to 
JOHN LANE COMPANY 

of its permission, generously given, to draw freely, 
for the purposes of this volume, upon the following 
books by the same author previously published by it: 
The Sailor Who Has Sailed; A Wand and Strings; 
The House That Was, and The Pursuit of Happiness. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Vigil-at-Arms 1 

LlEBESTOD — 

I. Love and Death 7 

II. Love Without Death 10 

Tryst Below Zero 12 

Seaward 13 

Coordinates 14 

EVEN-50NG 15 

Sanctuary 16 

In April 17 

The First Death 19 

The Blind Seer 21 

To Helen 25 

To Sonia 27 

The Hinterland 30 

Epigrams in Absence 32 

White Violets 34 

Tristan to Iseult, on the Sea 35 

Pygmalion to Galatea 39 

To an American Girl in the Costume of 

Ancient Greece 40 

Penelope 42 

Librarian 46 

All Other Loves 48 

[vii] 



Contents 



PAGE 

Inspiration 49 

Litany with the Evening Star 50 

Eucharist 54 

As It Was from the Beginning 58 

A Pathway to the Stars 59 

For the Dedication of a Toy Theatre 61 

The House that Was 63 

To THE Very Tender Crescent Moon 74 

Idyl 75 

Once upon a Time 77 

To AN Old Family Servant 81 

To A White-Throated Sparrow 82 

Psyche 84 

When the Wind Blows , 85 

After a Thousand Years 86 

For Youth 89 

Collegian 92 

The Little Boy to the Locomotive 93 

The Locomotive to the Little Boy 94 

To the Absolute 95 

Due North 99 

The Sailor Who Has Sailed 101 

The Prison House 103 

In an Anthology 105 

The Washington Statue in Wall Street . . — 106 

Fifty Years After 107 

Rough-Hew Them How We Will 108 

These United States 110 

A Pine Box — and the Flag 115 



[viii] 



Contents 



PAGE 

The Housing of the Banners 116 

Requiescat 121 

Grace Court, Brooklyn Heights 123 

Studies — 

I. April in the City 126 

n. Poughkeepsie Bridge 126 

HI. East River 127 

IV. Apple Bough 127 

V. Craigie House 128 

VI. The Swing 129 

VII. Breakneck Pond 129 

VIII. Wishing Tree 130 

Jack o' Dreams 131 

Underground . . . : 135 

A Young Girl Sings 138 

Sonnets from the Pursuit of Happiness 141 

The Garden of Sleep 154 

Epilogue: After a Trip from Albany by 

Night Boat 157 



[ix] 



BROKEN MUSIC 



BROKEN MUSIC 



THE VIGIL-AT-ARMS 

OTHOU that in the deepness of the night 
Beholdest me; — 
Captain of Kings, invisible and dight 

With mystery: 
Thou that are death, and ridest on a sword; 
Thou that art love, upon a cross adored; 
Thou that art life, and life eternal, Lord, 
I kneel to thee. 

I am as yonder taper on thy shrine, — 

Late-lit and tall; 
My spirit bows with every breath that thine 

Here letteth fall: — 
The flickering world is witched and turned and 

trolled; 
And oh, my heart is wax, that once was bold; 
I perish straightway save that thou uphold; — 

Thou that art all. 

It was but lately that a child I came 
First upon life; — 
[1] 



The Vigil-at-Arms 



Loving spring flowers, gentle, without blame, 

Knowing not strife: 
The world was old ere battles bloomed for me; 
Boyhood was dreams, and swooning minstrelsy; 
I wandered all alone and wandered free 

Where dreams are rife. 

But all at once the silver-crested surge 

Ceased to be cloud, 
And thundered over me; I felt the scourge 

And sting, and bowed 
Under the brine, until, half-dead, I lay 
Forspent upon the sand; and from that day, 
Triumphant-tongued, the fury of the fray 

Calls me aloud. 

Let priestly pardoners still shrive the world, 

White and aloof; 
Mine be the battle-flame, the fear unfurled, — 

The storming hoof; 
Let me be mingled with a maze of blows; 
Hard pressed to live, heart mad, beset with foes. 
Or, lance in rest, ride down the lists' enclose 

To peril's proof. 

I would drink deeply. Lord, past joy and pain, 

Down to the lees; 
I would live life to every utmost vein; 

Like sap in trees 
[2] 



The Vigil-at-Arms 



Let me know root and branch; let this be mine, 
To drain the world's whole heritage of wine; — 
Co-parcener of pain with thee and thine. . . . 
I ask not ease. 

Yet, round my battered helm may dreams be born. 

And raptures spring, 
As I have seen fair clouds a craggy horn 

Engarlanding: 
Let dreams be wings and waft me from the ground; — 
With sprigs of Arcady my brow be crowned. 
And where I lie, all battle-stained, be found 

The fairy ring. 

Let me look back on boyhood and be fain 

Of childish cheer; 
Make after fight, like robins after rain. 

Glad thoughts appear: 
Remind me of the sweetness of the May; 
Pink apple-blooms with starlight on their spray; 
Exotic odors out of yesterday; 

Let such be near. 

Let such be near, through all the storm and fret, 

Near in the fight; 
The bitter wrong, the sorrow, the regret. 

Let these make right: 
For I no longer. Lord, take bribes of joy. 
Nor follow rainbows as did once a boy; 
[3] 



The VigU-at-Arm^ 



Give me my dreams and let the years destroy 
Other delight. 

Give me the steps that unto Heaven's blue 

Steeply aspire; 
Lift me with song, and all my thoughts imbue 

With spirit fire: 
Mine be the mould and measure of a man; 
Let me be strong, O Lord, to build thy plan, 
But lest I fail, let me be greater than 

My heart's desire. 

Like one that dwelling inland comes at last 

Upon the sea; 
Breathing strange breaths, and but a pebble-cast 

From mystery; 
So I upon a headland here do stand 
Fronting the whole of life, my forehead fanned 
With strong sea-wind, and out, far out, from land 

The future see. 

Lord, is it cloud, or is it castle, there 

Beyond the brim? 
What heavenly towers, Lord, are those, so fair, 

So great and grim? 
Are those the gates that glitter, as with gold; 
In mother-of-pearl are those the bastions bold; 
And is it war, and do the warriors hold 

The ocean's rim? 
[4] 



The Vigil-at-Arms 



Nay, for the long horizon fills the rain, 

Soft shadows creep. 
And blind oblivion falls upon the main. 

As of a sleep: 
I drink old voices, drear and out of kin; 
Half -uttered wails of prophecy begin; 
I hear of heroes dying, in the din 

Where dies the deep. 

I am afraid, Lord; is it thither thou 

Would'st have me go? 
I am afraid, and would wend backward now 

Where violets grow: 
My heart is fickle for the fields, I yearn 
Once more at eve to see my windows burn; 
Once more (ah, let me! ) down old paths to turn,- 

I love them so. 

Nay! — 'tis the morrow, yonder leaded panes 

No more are dim 
With dark-browned infidels, but are the fanes 

Of seraphim; 
And holy saints and warriors are dight 
With jeweled colors flaming in their flight, 
And out of Heaven, wrapt in lovely light, 

The rafters swim. 

It is the morrow. Lord, the sweet airs blow 
Up the long nave, 
[5] 



The Vigihat-Arms 



And plight the day's full troth, yet . . . ere I go. 

One thing I crave: 
Thou that art death, and ridest on a sword; 
Thou that art love, upon a cross adored; 
Thou that art life, and life eternal, Lord, 

Let me be brave! 



[6] 



LIEBESTOD 
I 

LOVE AND DEATH 

TILL death us part; — I dreamed that death was 
now, 
Pallid and old, unsought and drawing nigh: 
I dreamed that death was now, and fled to thee 
For thy warm mouth and beating heart, but thou — 
Thou could'st not stay him, he was come for me; 
I felt his fingers cold take mine to die; 
Till death us part? — I dreamed that death was now. 

I dreamed: 'twas but a dream that went and came; 
Slipt moonshine between clouds; and yet, 
Be thou the proof of that; my fingers — there — 
I am not dead, then; follows still the fl!ame 
After me, where I brush your forehead bare: 
I am not dead; your heart does not forget. 
Your lips still know, your eyes droop down the 
same: 

A thousand kisses were no surfeiting; 
[7] 



Liehestod 

I am not dead. But if the dream came true, 
And I bereft thee at the last? Oh, then, 
When lovers kissed, thus, 'twere a foolish thing, 
' And love, no more than idle summers, when 
Flowers are blown, and breezes chance them 

through, 
And take their hearts, and leave them — lan- 
guishing. 

I might bear out such severance from thee 
As years would eke the other's life on earth; 
' I might endure to wander sterile days 
Without thee, so the end of it should be 
Thyself: to hear thee from along deep ways, 
And see thee coming, like a star, to birth, 
Over sad marches, to eternity. 

But, like twin candles, gutter life away, 

And flicker down to nothingness? — ah, no! — 

If that be love, then I will love no more; 

I will not stoop to it, I will not stay 

One further moment kneeling at thy door; 

If that be love, I'll to a desert go. 

And weather out the future, loveless; nay, 

I would not even live, if that were all! 
And still I hold thee, here, and still thou art 
Continuous, like music, loving me. 
But if no death, yet, when our fingers fall 
[8] 



Liehestod 

At last from one another's, then shall we, 

Man without strength, and woman without heart, 

Love as of old? — can spirits love at all? 

From what wraith-mist of nebulous disguise 
Wilt thou unveil thyself; or, being known. 
What moon-white love can give us what we knew? 
For I shall have no arms in Paradise, 
Nor thou, such lips to bring deep kisses to; 
And all the pangs our hearts have overflown. 
How shall we speak, no longer having eyes? 

Forever sailing, here we find not, here 

Are only haze and last horizon line; 

Here only stars that dream around the world. 

That droop, and dim, and draw not ever near; 

Here only stars, and cloudy sails unfurled; 

No landward lights, ours only, mine and thine; 

No hoped for hills and pleasant islands here. 

And yet — I would sail on so, having thee; 
I would sail on, unnoticed and unknown, 
Our soft aff"reightment slighted of the years, 
Our mortal life made immortality; 
I would sail on so, even with my tears; 
Forever breathe thy loveliness, my own. 
And ever, waking, wind thee nearer me. 

The looms of Time weave on, weave on, and will; 
The dial-shadow moves unmindful of 
[9] 



Liebestod 

The lovers leaning on its travels so: 
I know that somewhere destinies fulfil, 
And howsoe'er I lose thee now, I know 
That I shall find thee, yet — God of love, 
Let us, let us, be man and woman still ! 

II 

LOVE WITHOUT DEATH 

A crimson emptiness I've proved the rose, 
That in its budding promised me divine; 
The star that from the sunset's pallor blows, 
Sinks in the sunset's half -drained lees of wine: 
Deceitful was the happiness that drew 
My hunger to the Islands of the Blest ; 
I was not happy though I came thereto; 
Pity was mine, and shame, and great unrest: 
I heard the sirens singing overseas, 
And caught wept beauties from the Lotus shore; 
I touched the blue-encircled, far Hesperides; 
All, all were mine; I wish them mine no more. 

I have no pleasure in their pleasing, none; 

I only live that I may live for — one. 

I see thee stand, beyond the death of dreams, 
Above the drift of flower-fading years; 
Thou wilt not ride the downward-running streams 
To blue oblivion; thy tender tears 
[10] 



Liebestod 

Have lifted thee too far for Time's hard hand, 
The love that thou hast given gives thee now 
Forgetfulness of fear: I see thee stand 
Like some clear peak, the sunset in thy brow; 
Immutable of heart, and gazing where shall shine 
A thousand stars of holiness; where soon 
Thou shall put on a whiteness more divine, 
Withal, thy whiteness, underneath the moon. 
Thou art so true, thou art thyself, and I, 
I shall have thee when all the others die. 

I shall have thee; — I know not in what land, 
Past what imperial outposts never seen. 
Beneath what towers too bright to understand; 
I know not, save as sometimes I have been 
Hard at their boundaries, looking, not with eyes, 
Over broad seas, and twilight hills, or through 
Wind-mingled boughs far upward into skies; 
Save as I've heard strong voices that I knew, 
Struggle to be, from under storms in trees, 
And out of smothered speech that silence gave; 
I know not in what land, beyond what seas 
I know not, save that I shall have thee, save 
That at the last no loss can ever be, — 
Thou wilt reach down, and I shall come to thee. 



[11] 



TRYST BELOW ZERO 

STARS all entangled in stiff twigs of trees; 
Faded tapestries 
Once tinted warm with sunset, as with wine; 
The crunch of snow where wheel-tracks print 

and freeze; 
Then silence. How the breath gives counter- 
sign! 

Eyes, now — yours and mine. 

Charmed druid circle of trunks bleak and 
frore : — 

Hidden is the spore 
Of vital heat in them, crept underground. 
But — touch of fingers — spring will swift restore 
Their fervent sap and bated bliss profound. 

Hearts, now — how they sound! 

Each star a tooth to sting, each twig a spire 

Tingling with quick fire: 
Fixed in intense gaze, Beauty overpowers 
To one white pinnacle of sharp desire. 
Elysian pangs — taste of immortal flowers — 

My kiss? Nay! 'twas ours! 
[12] 



SEAWARD 

THE little boats, the little boats, 
Go sailing out to sea; 
With courage manned they leave the land, 

And steer them steadfastly: 
The sun turns gold, and on they hold, 

A-sailing out to sea; 
And I should like, and I should like. 
To sail with them to thee. 

The little birds, the little birds. 

Go flying out to sea; 
At some far call relinquish all, 

And go intrepidly: 
The sun's last red is in their stead. 

And still they fly to sea; 
And I should like, and I should like. 

To fly with them to thee. 

The little stars, the little stars, 

Come out upon the sea; 
Each candle light is lit to-night 

With loving memory: 
The day is done and one by one 

They hover on the sea; 
And I should like, and I should like, 

To look with them on thee, 
[13] 



COORDINATES 

TAWNY the sand; the strange, wildflower sea 
All blue and overblown: 
Cloudy with shadows what ship was she? 
Why, with her sails, did she come to me, 
Unf or gotten, unknown? 

Clewed-close to windward, she steadies yet 

On one short tack inshore; 
Low on her lee, with her bows washed wet. 
Working her northing — should I forget? — 

To Boston or Bangor. 

Many a coaster swallowed at dark. 

Waned with the afterglow. 
Dearly I've loved; but none like that bark: 
Some drift of stars we were meant to mark; 

But what, I do not know. 



[14] 



EVENSONG 

THE night and the day have met on the road, 
Travelers faring afar; 
Have met and kissed and gone on their way — 
Their kiss is the evening star. 

The night and the day have met on the road, 

Wayfarers passing by; 
The day has blushed at the glance of the night,— 

Her blush is the evening sky. 

The night and the day have met on the road. 

Longing to linger there; 
Have looked and sighed and said farewell, — 

Their sigh is the evening air. 

The night and the day have met on the road, 

Tremulous, my Sweet; 
And all the twilight is faint with the prayer 
That thou and I should meet! 



[15] 



SANCTUARY 

THE shadow of a sail upon the sea; 
The shadow of a cloud upon the sand; 
I lie remembering of thee, 
In a thirsty land. 

Take me from the weariness of days 

To where thou art, in fadeless beauty set: 

Fold me from the sun's fierce blaze 
With thy wings, dew-wet. 

Be mine the utter wakefulness of night, 
To lose no single graciousness of thee; 

Reach thou cool fingers of delight 
To my brow, the sea. 

Let me be the rippling refrain 

Which followeth the music that thou art: 
Wind me with a silver skein 

To thy beating heart. 

The starlight that is lost among the trees; 

The moonlight that is wasted on the land; 
Thy love, which Heaven only sees, 

Be mine — near at hand! 
[16] 



IN APRIL 

I 



F there's wind upon the meadows, there is sunlight 
in the trees, 



There is glowing, golden sunlight, and desire; 
If there's storm on stream and river, there are songs 
and melodies, 
There are songs that follow shepherds, and the lyre. 

Up around the walls and hedges, down the roadsides 
and the lanes, 
There is strewing of first flowers, and delight; 
There are evenings, long and shadowed, there are 
homeward-wending wains. 
There are robins giving gladness, and good-night. 

If there's winter on our faces, there is summer in our 
hearts. 
There is laughing, leaping summer in our eyes; 
And although as young as April, we are older than 
all arts. 
We are wiser than all wisdoms of the wise. 

We have risen up from winter and are waiting with 
the spring, 
We are breathless for the summer and await; 
[17] 



In April 

Far away on distant mountains we have heard her 
heralding, 
We are breathless for the summer, and a mate. 

If there's wind upon the meadow, there is sunlight in 
the trees, 
There is golden, glowing sunlight, and desire; 
If there's storm on stream and river, there are songs 
and melodies, 
There are songs that follow shepherds, and the 
lyre. 



[18] 



THE FIRST DEATH 

I COULD wish the world were, as lately, wound 
In stiff, creaking mail, — 
Perfect proof to storm, triple brass all around, 

Bare-headed and pale: 
It were better . . . trees are truest in rime, 
And the fight best fought when stark branches climb 
On a northeast gale. 

This wide May morning, where the loosed winds go 

Into cloudless air. 
And white petals are flushed with pink, as though 

The bosom were bare 
Of a maid who trembled with love, and sighs; 
It is all too sweet for my untamed eyes; 

It is all too fair. 

It is all too fashioned out of young men's dreams; 

Such as tear them through 
A whole forest of brambles, with soft gleams, 

And then turn untrue: 
And then prove to be faithless to those they led; 
Who believed them, and followed, and fought, and 
and bled, 
And conquered — some few. 
[19] 



The First Death 



I remember how, when flowers first came, 

I would reach a hand. 
In hot haste to be plucking their white flame; 

Laid bare a whole land 
With my forays, thinking thus I should get 
What they were: always failed it, and yet 

Did not understand. 

But oh, now ... I know. This wide, morning place, 

And wind-tempered sky; 
I would hold aloof, with averted face. 

And bid them pass by: 
It will chance, I trust, I shall bear this thing. 
As is needful; but not, not while the spring 

Is asking me why. 



[20] 



THE BLIND SEER 

I FIND it pleasant here, of afternoons: 
The sun is tempered by a taste of sea; 
The beach is just below; and while I have 
Enough of city not beyond my call, 
The noise is lulled. 

Sit there: the stone will cool 
With early shadows from the temple wall: 
Apollo with his hand before his face; 
A jest I think of, more than once, with smiles. 

How fell it that I am — this that I am? 
I lost my eyes, and so ... I learned to see. 
I do not jest with you on this: 'tis truth. 
As I will show, to patience and good heed. 

Eyes? I had eyes beyond the most of men. 

I touched each star of all the Pleiades; 

Tracked deer at dawn; spied fish in runnel beds. 

And sifted tree-tops through a driving rain. 

I was the first, scarce but a lad, to see 

The glint of galleys on the ocean's rim. 

When friend or foe, we knew not which, was near; 

And winnowed-out the foremost for our own. 

I won a wreath for that. 

[21] 



TJie Blind Seer 



But most of all 
I lived with color. Color was my home. 
Hours at a time I haunted, chin in hand, 
The cloudy edges of old, battered cliffs; 
Whence, body-prone, I scrutinized the sea. 
I never wearied, watching. Hues were sounds 
And sang to me: a breaking wave broke song 
More beautiful than surge; the soaring trees 
Made music for the modulating sun. 
More perfect than the wind's on summer nights. 
I walked, and echoes of faint colors flew, 
Like snatches of sweet birds, from everywhere, 
I dreamed, with half-closed eyes, and madrigals 
Fell from the moon, or dwindled with the West. 
I heard the flutings of anemones; 
The blare of poppies in the sallow wheat; 
And plucked rich major-chords of bliss 
From trellised roses on the garden wall. 
They took it all away. I lost my sight. 

You've seen a flower pillaged from its place; — 
Poor bruised-of -stalk! — its petals and bowed head 
Plumbing the last abyss of abject woe: 
I wonder if it blames the gods, as I; 
Cries them unjust, and maledicts their world? 
Most like. At any rate it dies. I lived. 
First died, then lived: a sort of after-death, 
A twilight before dawn, that was not death, 
Nor, either, life. I felt as wounded do, 
[22] 



The Blind Seer 



That see their bodies torn, and feel no hurt; — 
Ill-fated houses, all their folk from home, 
Gutted with ruin by marauding bands 
Whom no one stays ; while household gods look down. 
From by the hearth-side, stolid, through the din. 

Thus; many days. At length there smiled a dawn 
When one emboldened breeze slipped past my sill 
With perfumes in its arms, and trailing flowers. 
I sniffed the spring; and lo, I lived again. 
No more with just that loosing of great winds 
To ride the world, which was my want before; 
But in the quiet footpaths, step by step. 
More mindful of each whisper by the way; 
I walked. 

Whether it was a something in my face, 
A sadness with an afterthought of peace. 
Or some serener purpose of the mind, 
By pain imposed; I know not. But they came. 
I could give help, it seemed, to multitudes. 

You've entered, out of sunlight, a dark room. 
And slowly yielded to its gentler rays. 
Until, at last, what had been blind, you saw. 
So I. They called it miracles of sight. 
I gave them counsel once, when peril spoke, 
That brought unlooked-for victory in lands 
Where late our arms had crumbled. That was how 
[23] 



The Blind Seer 



I won the title: "He who saved the state." 

You've lived here long? You know the rest of me. 

The tide should be at ebbing-point by now. 
The wind is making: in an hour or more 
The reef ofif yonder headland will be white. 
I used to love it, when the sun was low. 



[24] 



TO HELEN 

UNWINTRY winds wrought with the trees 
Till I feigned of far-off seas 
And a southern tongue; 
And then, like a lake, the placid sky 
Was all shaken, and broken; and so was I: 
A bird having sung. 

A bird; where fell no flute of song 
Out of heaven the winter long. 
And the dull world lay 
A lover, lethargic, weary-worn 
With too much denial, and too much of scorn, 
And too deep delay. 

The sky was shaken by that bird, 
And the wind, and I; who heard 

His high thrill of joy: 
For out of that singing, suddenly, came 
The whole vigor of summer, full-flushed, a flame 

No death could destroy. 

A man looked out on life so long. 
He forgot his heart of song 
[25] 



To Helen 



And his minstrel ways; 
Till, just of a chance, a child went by, 
And she questioned his face — ^he never knew 
why — 

With a child's quick gaze. 

She passed, but oh, she left behind. 
In his eyes, no longer blind, 

A heaven of blue. 
She gave him, you see, his heart again, 
With her look of a child, so puzzled at pain: 

Helen, it was you! 



[26] 



TO SONIA 

"I kneel not to you, but to suffering humanity in 
you." — Crime and Punishment. 

THERE are feet on the stones outside, 
And laughter, and eventide. 
This bud-break of May. 
"I am lonely at dark," it reads: 
For my sake? — how a hurt heart bleeds! — 
Or wouldn't you say? 

It were little enough to give, 

Just once; to live and let live. 

With love out of cage 
One full breath ... It is harsh to withhold. 
The windows that sky-gleamed are gone lamp-gold; 

Print blurs on the page. 

Your room, with the shadows that fall 
Just so, will be lighted, all 
The corners curved in: 
Will you use my chair, the full, ripe red? — 
Or set it away from you, dead, stone dead? 
What St' devil's gin ! 
[27] 



To Soma 

Not to wait, to-night as before, 
Watching you close the door 

And smile as you turned, 
Is my width of penance. You used to sit down 
With a tuck of feet and a twitch of gown 

That were better unlearned. 

One wearies of bindings; the best 

Tree calf, with a hand-tooled crest, 

Will cheapen of charm: 
What's leather to fondle? Finger-tips know 
The worth and the warmth, the rich, rose-leaf glow 

Of an inside arm. 

Will the heart run dry, as you say, 
With disuse? I know the gray 

At my temples is sign 
Youth passes. Will spending renew me? Tears 
Would not wash it, if life took your years 

To give me back mine. 

"A strong man would take!" So you fling 
The taunt at me, challenging 

My strength with a fear. 
Perhaps, if he willed. So might I, 
If I willed ... I am hungry; then why, why 

Stay a-fasting here? 

I'll tell you. Shut eyes on a proud. 
Pale peak, and a breath of cloud, 
Dawned red into gold; 
[28] 



To Sonia 



Or an ocean at moonrise, dimmed 
In warm starlight, and then overbrimmed 
With a side-glance of cold. 

Have you ever come flush on a spray 
Of arbutus, daft with May, 

In a city street? 
Or heard a voice singing the windows wide. 
From your sick-bed, haply, just as hope died, 

Forlorn, in defeat? 

Not the fear you impute. I saw. 

Eyes-deep (You should call it awe), 

To the truth of you. 
"I am lonely at dark," it reads: 
For my sake? How a hurt heart bleeds! 

I am lonely, too. 



[29] 



THE HINTERLAND 

I CANNOT keep thee from my dreams, 
However else I put thee by; 
My frozen brooks are running streams, 
When thou, in dreams, art once more nigh. 

I wake with all defences down, 
That were so hardly built by me; 

Scarcely a single moated town 
Remains unleveled to the sea. 

I wake, and unlethargic know 
The bitterness of banished pain; 

Thy coming leaves me once more low, 
I take thy loss to heart again 

By this I know I am not king 

Beyond one strip of sand and sea; 

For inland are such folk as bring 
Rebellious loyalty to thee. 

Under a snow-clad mountain range, 

Behind the bosom of the hills, 
They dwell, and yield no hope of change 

Such as the empty sea-coast wills. 
[30] 



The Hinterland 



Thrice-girt in steel, to hold thee where 
Thy loveliness less poignant seems, 

Betrayed, my people strip me bare, — 
I cannot keep thee from my dreams. 



[31] 



T 



EPIGRAMS IN ABSENCE 

I 

00 far my muezzin, exiled wanderer? 
Fragrance of flowers, repeat my prayers to her. 



II 

The tapestry of twilight. Taper-high, 
One planet. Who lit love in it? Did I? 

Ill 

I heard faint strings, a boat-load, on a lake: 
Then quiet. I was gentle for your sake. 

IV 

Diana curved her maiden moon. A star 

Bled light. So I bleed love. So youth's you are. 

V 
I passed a lighted doorway, at gray gloam. 
A candle went upstairs. Were ours that home! 

VI 

The rays from that pricked point of midnight star 
Reach me unhindered. Flies my love less far? 

VII 
Dark of the sky is wrung out in white rain. 
So sorrow clouds and love makes clean again. 

[32] 



Epigrams in Absence 



VIII 

The ice has melted where the bridge bends low. 
Our two lives crossed: my frozen currents flow. 

IX 

When you were near, I slept for love's sweet sake. 
Now, being absent, pain and I awake. 

X 

Not as a bee, forgetful of a flower, 

Think of me. But a tide, more stirred each hour. 

XI 

Talk. Talk. The wintry sun slants down the floor. 
If you were here . . . They buzz on as before. 

XII 

The wintry iron yields: the leaden sky 

Lights up. Can spring be waiting? Spring — and I. 

XIII 

Spring's in her early shyness, yet she stays 
Each night just longer. So your smile delays, 

XIV 

Now, underfoot, cramped winter runs away. 

For us that song-sparrow, Love, had much to say. 

XV 
Lost is the singing lark, at last, in sky. 
I cannot speak; for loving you so high. 

[33] 



WHITE VIOLETS 

TEARS that never quite touched earth, 
Passion-buds that lie 
Stillborn of a fruitless birth, — 
Stars from a dead sky. 

Not with purple pulses borne 

Down wild tides of play; 
Ages since, an elfin horn 

Witched their youth away. 

Blanched with their own beauty; pale. 

Much as maids might be, 
Looking long for one soft sail 

Swallowed by the sea. 

Much as they who, stooped with years. 

Listen all alone, 
Hearing faint, through far-off ears. 

Voices they have known. 

Children of too gentle birth, 

Here these flowers lie; 
Love that never quite touched earth, — 

They . . . and thou and I. 
[34] 



TRISTAN TO ISEULT, ON THE SEA 

LADY of liege, a fair wind follows after, — 
A fair wind, to France; 
Under our prow sleek billows bubble laughter. 

And diamonds dance: 
Scarcely the mast betrays a tilt of motion 
'Twixt yon fleece cloud, and bosom-breathing 

ocean ; 
The soft sea air spells heavy eyes, a potion 
And a poppied trance. 

Spring is in England now; the broom and heather 

Will be fain to please; 
Spring is in England now; fields run together, 

And orchards are seas : 
You must clap hand to note our England smiling; 
Blowzed country lads, and lasses them beguiling; 
And, all around, the blue-eyed sea enisling 

Our England of ease. 

Mark and his castle, eagle and his eyry. 

Are aloof on rocks 
Wraithed with sea mist, and lapped in sunsets fiery 

Where the ocean knocks: 
Mark, a stern man, but just and fair of dealing, 
[35] 



Tristan to Isenilt, on the Sea 

Takes of his own cliffs; blunt, ashamed of feeling, 
Yet, here and there, in sunny nooks revealing 
The flowers he mocks. 

Holds the wind fair, England is ours to-morrow. 

And our journey's end; 
Would it were . . . well, there is always sorrow 

For new joy to mend: 
You will rejoice to hear the snuffed keel grating; 
There will be jousts, and village masques, and 

feting; 
Mark, with his henchmen, on the shingle waiting 

For his bride — and friend. 

I shall return, with speed, and spurs of glory. 

To that kingly realm — 
Arthur's, the Table Round; esteemed of story — 

That like a broad elm 
Branches to doughty deeds and rugged making: 
Man must to horse, and ride; his earthly aching 
Else will ride him; to horse, and battles breaking 

Through a slitted helm. 

Life is not bloomed from boys' and girls' believing; 

There is more of pain; 
Were it a whole, in warp and woof one weaving! 

But the rifts remain. 
All the brave cities ever laid in leaguer. 
All have been lost, when I, a boy too eager, 
[36] 



Tristan to Iseult, on the Sea 

Climbed; or were cloud-drift, without substance, 
meager 

As the moon's white rain. 

Life ... to be happy . . . were it so, then dying 

Were indeed to die; 
Life's to be lived, and stoutly, not with sighing . . . 

How the westward sky. 
Look! is a battlefield and lifting lances; 
Day will be dearly sold ere night advances; 
How that one star outrides them all, and prances 

White-plumed . . . Were it I! 

Thou wilt be held like unto distant singing, 

An undying song 
Men will recall with breaths of April, bringing 

The violets along: 
Thou wilt be whispered by the waves forever, 
Out on sad shores, to those the tides dissever; 
Live and endure through all the world's endeavor, 

A strength for the strong. 

May it be thine; the quiet starlight, sifting 

Through the leaves of life; 
May it be thine; the tender twilight, drifting 

Over day-long strife: 
Be it to thee, thy gift, to hear, unspoken. 
Things ihat a child, thy children, bring thee 
broken ; 

[37] 



Tristan to Iseult, on the Sea 

Theirs to be healed of thee, a mother's token; 
Be it thine . . . his wife. 

Will there be where, I wonder, in hereafter, 

The lost is regained? 
Now the wind dies, and with it dies the laughter; 

The West is still stained, 
Pale, now, an ocean full of isles and dreaming. 
Deep, tranquil bays, and limpid shallows gleaming; 
Oh, to be there! — to find it real, not seeming, 

And faith, unprofaned! 

Lady of liege, a soul is but a sorrow. 

It is best, I think. . . . 
You will be his, and I shall ride, to-morrow . . . 

Now, the first stars sink 
Into their sleeping; so must thou; yet going. 
Ere thou art gone, give me thine eyes, for showing 
We were friends once; friends the one wind was 
blowing. 

And so ... we did drink. ... 



[381 



PYGMALION TO GALATEA 

WHEN you were dreamed, and marble, flake by 
flake, 
In one mad smother of desire. 
Chipped to your sweet lean flanks, and smoothed to 
round. 
Taking your limbs' faint-thewed attire, 
I loved you for your body's sake: 

You gave not breath nor sound, 
Nor did awake. 

Then pain broke out in me, not pulse, I wis; 

It fluttered in my throat, a bird 
Wild as white light new-splintered from a star: 
My spirit cried to you. You stirred; 
You, the cool-veined as Artemis, 

Not as, touched, now you are, — 
Aglow, like this. 

Yours was the choice; immortally to take 
Allegiance of the ages, in cold line, 
Or, like a blossom on an apple bough. 
Take fire, ephemeral, and shine, 
Shot through and through with life's heart 
ache . . . 
Death's in your body, now: 
You are awake! 
[39] 



TO AN AMERICAN GIRL IN THE COSTUME OF 
ANCIENT GREECE 

Unwind, bent-browed Earth, your golden skein! 

Phoebe is come again, 
A shaft of moonlight shivering a glade; 
Poised, with blind feet, and fillet of moth-flower braid, 

Bewildering the brain. 

Seen glancingly. When eyes look clear of sound. 

And stilly she is found. 
No longer plucking petals from the dance, 
Then, flesh and blood, sweeter than old romance 

Of moon-drenched Grecian ground, 

She's Spring! — white winter melting into May, — 

Dearer than yesterday; 
A breathing girl of a yet lovelier land 
Than burned its heart out on the rich sea sand, 

When red sails ashed to gray. 

Straight as young pines, and like a sapling slender, 
True as the North, and tender; 

Quick seed of old-world bloom that crannied here; 

Thou are reborn, daughter of hearts austere 
Plighted in unsurrender. 
[40] 



To American Oirl in Costume of Greece 

Thou art reborn: yet in thy young limbs glows 

Like blood as in Sappho's, 
When her proud pulse impeached her: hands and feet 
Thou hast, and ankles, as in fabled Crete 
Worked Ariadne's woes. 

Repeated shape! — as on the pebbled shore 

The blue sea carves once more 
A sister wave of the bold breed that flung 
Round all the isles by leaf-stirred poets sung 
A star remove before. 

In actual sunlight given; on the gray 

New England granite; say 
What broken beauty drifts this sweet of song 
Down sky and shadow, petal and bright prong, 
Even as yesterday. . . . 



[41] 



PENELOPE 

I WONDER with what winds thou art, my own, 
Under what skies and cloudy drift of stars; 
Art thou at se , I wonder, or at rest 
In some sweet haven; dost thou lay thy head 
Contentedly on rough, beweathered boards, 
And art thou warm, my own, and dry? — for rain 
Loves not the aged, and I fear for thee. 
Thou wilt be coming home no more. I knew, 
Always I knew, I was not widowed, when 
Troy was a long while falling, and my king 
Beleaguered her. And now, now thou art gone 
A great way farther: I have dreams at night 
That thou art sailing to the world's white end, 
Even to where the sea is sea no more; 
And in the mist I lose thee at the last. 

Those early days! — I mind me well when thou, 
Dark-eyed, a boy full of deep thoughts. 
Inveigled me of love; we thought the world 
Could be contained, the whole of it, in our 

Young, tendril arms; when flowers dawned on us, 
We deemed they were our kisses, and white clouds, 
All deeply fragrant with the sunset, were 
The promises we plighted o'er and o'er. 
[42] 



Penelope 

Rememberest, I wonder, how we found 

Twin shells upon the sand? I have them yet: 

We would be like them, never be but one, 

Even in death. A kiss made sure of it. 

Then came the scourge from Troy: — I saw thee go, 

A shine of arms, beyond the wind-blown sea. 

My beauty, like the moon, filled more and more; 

And like a flower looking to the sun, 

I held my heart to thee; and thou away. 

It pained that I was youthful not for long. 

And beautiful for none to fondle me. 

Or dote upon my softness, as the wind 

Creeps in from sea, over warm droves of flowers. 

I could not peak and pine, lest thou return, 

And find me faded . . . for I lived for thee: 

But others came, pretending to my hand. 

Sweet-spoken courtiers having honeyed lips 

And garmented with praises for my eyes. 

It pained that they should see my loveliness, 

And find me worshipful, when he, the one 

In all the world, my Lord, was blind of me. 

At last, at last; — I mind me well the day: 
Thou wast a tempest scurrying dead leaves, 
And afterwards, — an autumn of calm sky; 
We were so happy with each other's eyes. 
But in the years I've seen it come for thee, 
The old, old longing, never far away; 
[43] 



Penelope 

I've watched thee, when thou knew it not, asleep, 
Or dull before the fire; and I've seen 
The sinews tighten to receive a blow, 
And e'en beheld thee half rise up, to meet 
Great captains coming to thy tent; or else, 
A rift of sunshine on a wan, gray sea. 
Remembrance of a glorious day of fight. 

I knew that thou must go; thou art a man 
Moulded for more than me, — a man whose name 
Was pricked in stars before his birth, and now 
Men give Ulysses to their sons to guide. 
I knew that thou must go; thou art a man, 
And all the privilege of accident 
Is thine; thou art for deeds, blows, danger — death: 
It is thy state to sue such bright emprise, 
That in the dint o' it, either thou dost fail, 
And dash to earth; or ride with perfect wings 
Right in the stormy current of a star! 
Thou art a man; I knew that thou must go. 

I am a woman; often I have lain 
All night, unsleeping, when the wind was out, 
And hearkened to the sorrows of old times 
Pleaded with tears that happened long ago; 
The loves of other women and the pain 
That love presumes; and rising with the dawn. 
Have watched the surges whiten on the shore, 
Ever and forever, wasting, without end. 
[44] 



Penelope 

I am a woman; half my life I live 

On with the seasons, half ... I do not know; 

I seem to grope in ancient memories 

The years have blurred upon with blinding rain; 

I am a woman; more I cannot tell. 

There will be no returning, yet I live 
That I may go with thee, where'er thou art, 
As I have ever gone, and lived, with thee. 
Thou canst not sail so far beyond the rim 
That I shall lose thee; always I shall be 
Pale light, like dawn, upon a troubled sea, 
And when the wind is soft, and south, 'tis I 
Shall breathe on thee, and wanton with thy hair; 
And in the darkness thou art not alone, — 
My heart shall come to thee; and every day. 
Once in the morning, once at evening, I 
Will touch the sea that thou art sailing on, 
And tell it to be kind to thee. Farewell! — 
Into the sunset go, with sails of cloud, 
A rose-leaf cloud; into the distance, till 
The twilight swallow thee. My King! . . . fare- 
well. 



[45] 



LIBRARIAN 

LIKE sparks above a windy fire, 
Stars in the dawn-draft drifted higher; 
Deep-etched, the pines in distance grew 
Clearer against the sky; then dew 
Woke on the grass; a bold cock crew, — 
And all the birds came, choir on choir. 

I dressed, and as I turned the stair 
The sunlight was already there; 
The windy sky was washed with rain, — 
A flash of gold the weather-vane; 
In gray and green, along the lane. 
The frisking willows loosed their hair. 

That was this morning: not yet noon, 
And I am back again — so soon. 
This is the happy holiday. 
The village folk are blithe and gay; 
I was not happy there to-day, — 
I found it strangely out of tune. 

Often as not, when I am glad. 
And fling myself on life, with mad. 
Most eager merriment of eyes, 
[46] 



Librarian 



A veil of cloud creeps up the skies; 
The wind turns cold; a woman sighs: 
I laugh; but vainly — I am sad. 

And so to-day: its joys, in view, 
Woke me before the dawn came through. 
I did my dreams of gaiety; 
And they are done, and I am he 
Who comes, unhappy, here, to be 
Quiet, my old, old friends, with you. 



[47] 



ALL OTHER LOVES 



OLD shadows, when the fire-light flickers on the 
wall; 
Old fancies, when the raindrops through the wet 

leaves fall; — 
All other loves begin too late, to own us all. 



Her voice let down the bars of sleep and bade us go; 
Her touch took tears away, her smile, made well our 

woe; 
The dearest refuge in the world was her "I know." 

She gave so much, past life and breath, to us who 

came 
Out of the clouds that wrapped her heart in sudden 

flame: 
She kissed us with her dreams and taught us, each, 

his name. 

Old fragrance of wet roses, on the garden wall; 
Old songs of candle-light, through leaves wistfully 

that fall; — 
All other loves begin too late, to own us all. 

[48] 



INSPIRATION 

LIKE some sweet day thou art, exceeding rare. 
That after turbulent, October gales, 
Floats on a pool of deep, enchanted air, — 
A shallop rose-leaf with unfluttered sails. 

A day on which the world, at war so soon, 
Takes sacrament, putting its armor by; 

Before pale winter rings again the moon. 
And bitter snowflakes choke the tender sky. 

Kow, after hours with thee, as daylight dies, 
And over oceans evening voices are; 

White on my heart a singing pathway lies : 
I leave thee, breathless, with thy gift — a star. 



[49] 



LITANY WITH THE EVENING STAR 



THE STAR 



LIFT up your hearts; the smoulder-thickened 
sky 
Flames to the thousand altars of the West: 

THE PEOPLE 

We lift them up; the vales of evening lie 
Cool, and their shadows quiet us to rest. 

thou who givest to the purple sea, 

And on the mountains utterest away; 

Thou that with night dost whisper stars to be. 

And art, with rose-buds, filled with dew; and day: 

Thou whose wild feet are in the brimming tides 
And windy chorals of insurgent spring; 
(When flowers worship, and a true god hides 
In every flutter of a wood-bird's wing:) 

Thou that art deathless when the dead leaves go, 
And huddled harvests grieve the dying year; 
That bringest frost-light flying through the snow;- 
Sleigh bells, 

[50] 



Ldtany with the Evening Star 

And happy hearthsides; 
hear! 

oh, hear! 

By what thou tellest to the little streams 
That filter downward to a far-off sea; 
By what the robin learns of thee, that dreams 
Her nest and brood, swayed in an apple tree: 

By the sweet sense that makes the crocus rise 
Long ere the winter rushes out in rain; 
By all the wonderment that lives and lies 
In buds of April bursting forth again: 

By moth wings, and the modesty of pearls, 
And shell tints inexpressible and dear; 
By sleep-blown children pillowed on their curls, — 
By all thy gentleness, 

we pray thee, 

hear ! 

For those who suffer, underneath the sky, — 
(Poor pensioners of pain, that crave surcease!) 
For women in their travail tears that lie; 
For beds of fever parched and out of peace: 

For those who toil to keep alive a spark, — 
(Poor pittancers with porringers of lead!) 
For wolfish eyes and hunters in the dark; 
And souls that shrivel ere a child is fed: 
[51] 



Litany with the Evening Star 

For all frail flesh that follows foolish ways, — 
(Poor penitents that sicken and are sere!) 
For lonely midnights and insipid days; — 
(Poor parted lovers ! ) 

we beseech thee, 

hear! 

And we beseech thee, let our prayers uphold 
Young men who come to battle unafraid; — 
Who plunge with ardor in the world's keen cold: 
Proof thou their spirits like a tempered blade! 

We crave thee, look with tenderness on those 
Who drink deep reveries with far-off eyes; 
Oh, send thy pity when a sunset glows 
On poets reft of utterance by skies! 

Hover on those who, voiceless, have not sung, 
Yet, being earth-bound, tremble to be clear. 
And climb to thee on beauty, rung by rung; — 
Hear us, and help them, 

we beseech thee, 

hear! 

Shrive us for looking with too narrow gaze; 
For judgment when we knew not what was just; 
For envy, and unhonorable dispraise; 
For hatred, 

and hard-heartedness, 

and lust. 
[52] 



Litany with the Evening Star 

Guard us from vapors of low-vaulted night, 
On evil-smelling bat wings that embark; 
From fierce invasion and slow-moving spite; 
From guiltiness, 

from terror, 

from the dark! 

Spare us to lift sweet eyelids when the dew 

In individual stars divides the day; — 

When birds break out, and winds are coming 

through; 
Spare, 

and be young with us! — 

spare us, 
we pray! 

Go, now, in peace; the sable-hooded sky 
Stoops to the waning altars of the West: 

We go, in peace, the lanes of evening lie 
Hushed, and their shadows lead us down to rest. 



[53] 



EUCHARIST 

THIS is the brink, the valley without sound; 
Deeps, where no pebble trickles to the ground; 
The cloudiest abyss, 
Abruptest precipice; 
Too wide to leap, yet narrowing so near. 
Love listens over it. The brink is here. 

The fumes of poppied slopes here fall away; 

Music is broken on these peaks; here they 
Come, who were star-drawn down 
To brooks, and dreamed to drown. 

But thirsted hither; thin these airs so fine, 

Heart falters me. Christ passes . . . Bread and wine . . . 

Is loving so aloof? O cleanse with light 

My eyes: Lord, that I might receive my sight! 

It cannot ever be 

That life is devoid of Thee, 
That here alone, one honey drop, Thou art; 
Remote, high essence, from the world's great heart? 

No! — very distillate here; like a clear note — 
Darkened with raindrops — from a leaf- fringed throat; 
Printed like violets' veins 
[54] 



Eucharist 

The wounded sky ingrains; — 
April's remembrance, sweetened with her tears, 
Shy with defeat of all the entombing years. 

Here quiet, like stilled music, sharpens earth and sky 
Into intense atune; here fall and die. 

Faintly and far away. 

The wind and the wild spray; 
As when a door is closed on boisterous weather. 
And ticking time and silence creep together. 

Love is at poise here, petaled ecstasy 
Prisoned between two heart-beats, lonelily. 

But lift the bronze door's ring ... 

Love is a different thing. 
And suddenly goes forth, in candle smoke, 
To the broad day; as if great winds awoke. 

Love, I have dreamed of fen-foul battlefields. 
Littered with death no twinkling foliage shields, — 

The fly-blown flower of hate 

Sprawling and spatulate. 
And felt a sweetness, I knew not from where, 
Putting the poison by, and thou wast there. 

And I have traced thee, windowed in the eyes — 
Like sunset — of half -desperate youth (0 wise, 
To whom a hurt heart bleeds 
Courage and haughtier deeds!) 
[55] 



EiLcharist 

And tracked thy camp-fires on the hills, when pain 
Sickened me through, and smiled and fought again. 

Hapless we he, luffing and rudder-lost, 

Like leaves upon a haunted wood-pool tossed. 

Were it that Love came not. 

We drowned and were forgot: 
Blown beyond years, soon failed our feeble spark, 
From star to star so deep it is, and dark. 

As readers know a shadow on the page. 
Yet wake not from their pleasant pilgrimage. 

Living, we are aware 

Of an unearthlier air. 
Where branches bend with not a breath behind, 
And clouds blot moons away, and slow wings grind. 

Some midnight tryst, too terrible to know, 
Menaces all, and Love must rise and go: 

Into my dreams the dread 

Follows me, safe in bed. 
Until the rumor of that going dies 
Into brave dawn. Love, beyond what skies? 

Some tethered ugliness frays loose; some power 
Footprints the unspoiled meetness of an hour; 

Perverse, a proud look trips 

The marriage of ripe lips; 
Into the air the dice of death are tossed; — 
Is it cold luck? — some luckless child is lost. 
[56] 



Eucharist 



Alas! — poor children, strayed upon the path 
Of some far-going, eyes-uplifted wrath, 
That reckons not at all 
Of where its shod hooves fall, 
They perish, with their glimmers of sweet fire, 
Stamped out upon a blasphemous black mire. 

And we, explorers pale, grope through the dark. 
From tree to tree; slow-fingering the bark, 

Tilting our lantern light; 

To read what there may write . . . 
A king's writ runs, this twilight width of land: 
Token, the blood-prints of a pierced hand. 

A King's writ runs: our net- work sorrow drains 
Deep of the gladness in the young year's veins, 

And all lost loveliness 

Greens like a willow tress. 
A golden bird-song shaken from a bough? 
Yea, and a thunder in the stars art thou! 

A bit of broken water by the way. 
My poor heart is; yet look in it, I pray. 

Love, that it straight may be 

All sky -rejoiced with thee. 
Just now a whisper, floated past the brink. 
Troubled me dark. It was the dead, I think. 



[57] 



AS IT WAS FROM THE BEGINNING 

SET in a niche of living rock, I stand; 
And thou art with me; we two, side by side: 
Behind us is a neck of narrow land; 

Before us foams, in cruel swales, the tide. 

No room is here for querulous debate. 
For disputatious tongues, or broken ban; 

Life is the issue; thine, my woman mate. 

And mine, thy comrade and thy rough-thewed man. 

I kneel not, in idolatry of stone; 

Yet thou art precious, more than pelf or pride: 
Thy nearness is my panoply, alone; 

I thirst for battle, thou against my side. 

I thirst for battle, and it comes; the deep 
Gives up Goliath, one, huge, frowning wave. 

Dark, that roars over us; thunders, that sweep . . . 
I feel thee, thou art with me, I am brave! 



[58] 



A PATHWAY TO THE STARS 

A SHIP in doldrums, dripped the weather-vane, — 
Bereft of wind its gallant sails of gold; 
The morning snow had weakened into rain. 
And rain turned drizzle by late afternoon. 
And now came evening on, and like a swoon. 
Out of the sea a slow miasma rolled. 

Close to the walls it clung, and blurred away. 
Like beetling crags, their dizzy slopes of fire; 
Near to the ground it crept along, and lay 
Coiled-up for passers-by, or swayed enthralled 
Before bright windows, or, reminded, crawled 
Its loathsome length above the beaten mire. 

The yellow street-lamps swam like moons gone pale 

Behind blown cloud; the river whistles were 

A moan of baying monsters on the trail 

Of some doomed quarry, questing in the dark. 

Such nights smear moss on tombstones, and black 

mark 
Cold chapel walls, and make death dismaler. 

Where two streets joined, out of the murk, forlorn, 
Unheralded, they came. Hatless was she, 
[59] 



A Pathway/ to the Stars 



Ill-kempt, slack-shod, her garments shabby-worn. 
His arm fast locked, she leaned and with her eyes 
Searched his: her lips spelled Paradise. 
A little, dingy city-bred was he. 

So they passed on, adown that sodden street, 
Together, in sweet, isolate disdain; 
And so the mist closed in behind their feet 
Who went so foolish-free of all delight 
Through that amazing, pitiless, foul night; — ■ 
Two moon-mad lovers in a country lane. 

Oh, high-born stoics! — they had burst the bars. 
And dwelt deliberate with freedom; they 
Trod the true path, drinking not clouds but stars: 
Souls and not raindrops danced before their eyes. 
And in their train a wind blew butterflies. . . . 
They passed, and lo — the walks were white with May. 



[60] 



FOR THE DEDICATION OF A TOY THEATER 

YOU banished fairies and lean outlawed elves, 
Immured in dusty books on closet shelves; 
You exorcised young spirits that have lain, 
Cooped up with cobwebs, in a cynic's brain; 
You goblins and good fellows, mischief mites 
That drank the cream and teased the dog, o'nights; 
You godmothers; you witches on old brooms; 
You prancing princes (coal-black hair, and plumes). 
Maidens, magicians, ogres, Jacks-in-vines, 
Con your enchantments, furbish up your lines, 
Make ready for revival — not so fast! — 
You shall be summoned when the play is cast. 
And you, grown old too early, you whose eyes 
Have lost the wonder of the truly wise; 
You scoffers armed with "science" and a laugh, 
Who know the world and scorn the better half; 
You, also, looking backward with regret. 
Who catch some glimmers of late childhood yet; 
And you who never wandered, skimped indeed. 
Beyond the borders of the hard world's need; 
But most, you children, holding in your hearts 
The ways of highest heaven, best of arts. 
Be seated here. Yon curtain is the mind: 
Let logic slip, and — laughter is behind. 
[61] 



For the Dedication of a Toy Theater 

Ay, laughter, and brave deeds, and hopes come 

true, — 
The old sweet world of fancy, made for you. 
But mark you, disenchantment's nigh at hand; 
Whoever questions will not understand. 
Look to't: and, as you love us, we entreat, 
Put off your cares; a smile will buy your seat. 
Ho! actors! come, make ready there within; — 
Have up the curtain; let the play begin! 



162] 



THE HOUSE THAT WAS 

WHO art thou, ghastly creature, grinning clown; 
Imbiber of clear death, the ecstasy 
Of horror, newly shoveled from the grave? 
What irks those burned-out craters, once were eyes? — 
(They stare so steadfast) and that beetled brow, 
What roofs it that it wrinkles-on so long? 
And wherefore teeth? Thou canst not swallow 

food; 
Nor hast a tongue to savor with. A dog 
Might sniff some virtue in thee, thou rank skull. 
There is not; nay! — thy virtue is to rot! 
They turned thee out for that. 

It is not long, 
Not very long ago, new-born, a babe. 
Thou wast warm-pillowed on a mother's breast; 
Lulled with the lift and droop of it, to sleep. 
And blinking puzzled eyes for that the sun 
Made friends with thee, a fellow citizen. 
When thou didst fall awake at last, to be 
One with the wide world, hungry, with reaching 
hands. 

There was a window, doubtless, near the dawn, 
Where summer mornings looked at thee and smiled, 
[63] 



The Home That Was 



And bird songs, far away, and crowing cocks 
Mingled with sleep, till, happy, drowsy-eyed. 
Thou wast awake once more, with dewy grass 
And petals of closed flowers, and precious winds 
From over seas, that said farewell to stars. 

Long evenings waned for thee; and ere thou slept 
The moon could rise, new-floated, from the trees, 
And set thee sailing down long tides away. 
Before the twilight ended thee farewell. 
Or thou hadst lifted anchor to the dark. 
And storm there was, in hours when trees awake. 
With touches of strong wind that loosed old pain 
And comforted itself with tears: then thou 
Heardest, half soothed, and half in very awe. 
The rush of torrents in the thirsty leaves; 
And drowsy benisons of priestly rain. 

It must be, when the sun set southward, low. 
And frosty nights turned all the meadows brown. 
Thou lookedst into heaven, dull, dark and cold, 
And wast in raptures that a snowflake fell, 
Forerunning winter, in thy hollowed hand. 
Nay, surely, thou didst find the first far wings 
Of northward swallows, when the fast-locked ground 
Broke open to the lustiness of spring. 
And little leaves were thrusting-points of joy; — 
When long-forgotten fragrances once more 
Entered the gateways, trooping, like young girls, 
And, arm in arm, the songs of summer came. 
[64] 



The House That Was 



Thou wast a boy ere childhood wept for thee, 
And bathed in brooks or wallowed in warm hay; 
Far, windy hill-tops beckoned thee to go 
Beyond them, flaming, full of western gold. 
And down long lanes, however swift thy feet, 
Thy dreams flew faster, shadowed with blown cloud. 

Betimes thy boyhood fell from thee; a lad, 
Thou didst no more pluck happiness, alone 
On unfrequented feeding-slopes of joy; 
But soughtest-out thy fellows, and wast found 
With young, gruff voices, emulous to lead. 

Thus far we follow thee: then thou dost go — 
A brook abashed for leafy sanctities — 
Into green depths of murmurous surmise. 
Only we hear thy music, afterwhiles, 
A little space, thy laughter, dying down 
To distance, fringed-on with blown sighs 
And far-borne voices from a lonely hill. 
Dying? — thou art gone. 

We know no more; 
Save, somewhere, under stars, when twilight fell. 
Thy full course led thee, brimming, to the sea. 
And lost thee there. Brown skull, we know no jnore. 
And yet, it may be, piecing here and there 
Our dreams of thee, we may bloom back again 
Some semblance of an old time certitude, — 
The sunset light of what thy noon-days were. 
[65] 



The House That Was 



Thou wast a man, and didst drink life, not ease. 
The man thou wast most certainly did stand 
Face-forward in the open fields of fight: 
Thou hast been seaward like a rocky wall 
And felt the grinding thunder at thy gates. 
When oceans stirred: thy battlements besieged 
Have weathered-out the cruel cannon quake, 
The crushing stone and sickening, barbed hail: 
Thou art all smooth with searching winds of fate. 

Who turned thy face against the multitude, 
And set thee in the shadow of defeat? 
Why didst thou stand mid-current of them all, 
And lift thine eyes to perilous, proud ways? 

In autumn twilight 'twas thy wont to turn 
Across the fields, and leave thy toil behind; 
Plodding the stubbled furrows where the ground 
Was caked and dry with sun and little rain. 
And breathing smoke-drift from a brushwood pile 
Some woodsman built and covered with dry leaves; 
And often, then, the sky burned up in flame 
That smoldered down through glories of heaped 

cloud. 
To leave at last, in rifts, a molten star. 
Thy heart burned also, doubtless, with strong pain 
For beauty that it loved, and could not stay; 
And wonder stirred within thee, as if winds. 
Long sleeping through the night, remembered dawn. 
[66] 



The House That Was 



And when, some March-bewildered afternoon, 

The sun warmed out on rivulets of rain. 

And showed the speckled snow, washed, here and 

there, 
From patches of bare ground where Earth gaped 

through. 
Brown as a gypsy tattered without shame. 
Thou didst exult to breathe the homely sward. 
And smell the grass, pale, trampled — ^but alive. 
And sometimes, in sharp winter, on a hill 
Well fledged with somber firs, against clear sky. 
The wind blew snow-dust on the frosted snow. 
And leaning back for breath, hands over ears. 
Thou wast caught up in one sheer rush of joy, 
And laughed for living. 

There were other times . . . 
How many weary hours hast thou starved through, 
With not one spark of jubilant, sweet fire? 
No doubt thou didst go singing in the rain, 
And trudged on gaily through the driving snow; 
But elsewhere there were days with thee, too utter sad 
For any singing; days when winds had died. 
And hollow mists shut heaven's breath away: 
Days in the ruck of winter, when the snow. 
All mired with wheels, lay rotting in the roads. 
And nothing came, and no one sang along. 
And only out of window were wet trees. 
Or sodden snow, or clothes upon a line. 
[67] 



The Home That Was 



What bore thee on, confronting that gray sky, — 
That tedious path and pitiless, blind rain? 
What urge of patience held thy weary prow 
Against the hollows of that homeless sea? 

A ringing axe puts edge into the blood: 

Is't fancy? — was it thine to swing stout strokes 

Upon the bodies of big, burly trees. 

And open clearings with their crashing fall; — 

To lop the boughs, and sled the log- wood home? 

It was; thou didst; oh, surely, old, brown skull. 

On many a morning smelling of mild spring, 
We picture thee a-pl owing, thy two hands 
Held hard on handles, guiding the clean share; 
Down field and back, not checking save to turn. 
Or lift a root that hindered thee; and then, 
Back against tree — for comfort, not for shade — 
With knife and loaf and water-jug of stone. 
Making the mid-day meal with quiet mind. 

Not long; for down a windy afternoon 

We see thee plowing still, with chirp and whoa. 

Till shadows lengthen, and the sun dips down 

And leaves clear light to dwindle into stars. 

Ah, then, unhitching from the plow the team, 

Straight-backed at last, with eyes above the ground. 

How happy in thy weariness thou art; 

And how the dusk adds welcome to thy door! 

Was it thy strength, thy sinews and hard hands. 
That made thee tremble when the south winds blew? 
[68] 



The House That Was 



It seemed a trumpet stirred in some far land, 
And set thy blood up-answering in flame; 
A rally call and reveille that sang 
Beyond the world, a thousand years ago: 
That sighed and left thee fainter than before. 

Once more we dream: late April is it now. 

Late April is it; under last year's leaves 

The mayflower hides, and yellow marigolds 

In oozy meadows lavish, like the sun, 

Their smiles and laughter, clothed-on with clear joy. 

Now every silence is run sweet with streams, 

And gurgle notes that scatter into song 

From boughs faint budding for the lips of May; 

Now windy shadows quicken, and the light 

Is blown too high to tremble-out with day, 

But lingers to slow stars, and frogs set free 

Of old brown marshes wrinkled to the moon. 

Late April is it; down the windy lane 
And through the wall thou art, with afternoon 
And April — and a maid; but only her. 
Not afternoon or April, heedest thou — 
So sweetly at thy side she is, so dear — 
But only her thou heedest, till, just where 
The meadow rims, in one gray ledge of stone, 
Down sitting at her side, a shyness falls. 
Thou dost not hear the brisk-blown junipers. 
That stir; the far off cry and answer call 
Of scouting crows; the west wind in the grass: 
[69] 



The House That Was 



Thou hearest only how thine own two ears 
Are beating panic, nor dost trust thine eyes 
The venture now so desperate to be done. 

Late April is it, and late afternoon; 
Along the lane the shadows are unflowed; 
A planet walks the hill, and in the sky 
The wind blows violets and April green. 
Thou heedest not nor heedeth she, at all, 
Home-wending, save of eyes. 

Where are they gone, 
Blind skull; those eyes? — and where indeed is now 
Their sacrificial fire? Down what pale west 
Of sloping stars, with what doomed winds were they 
Sent flickering; those torches of delight? 

Death lives in silence, ever; not a sound 

Of all thou spakest once is left in thee 

As in old, ivied walls there lives again. 

On windy nights, the wassail and sharp song 

Of times long buried and burned out in flame. 

Where are they gone; thy wonderful wild words? — 

Thy whispers, broken, and thy pleadings — where? 

Still thou art silent; desolate thou art; 
And is there none of all that sang in thee? 
Almost it seems thou art, as once, here gone 
Through goldenrod and aster, under leaves 
Heart's blood incarnadined. Not long thy feet 
Have crushed this moss, this fallen log not long 
[70] 



The House That Was 



Has shredded with thy coming; down the glade 
It almost seems thy head and shoulders are. 
And this same sadness, surely, was thine too, — 
Of haze and hilltop and brown, heaped-up grain, 
And solemn hush as if old battles were, 
A breath might rumor of; one breath too far 
Beyond the hills to rumble now of war. 
But still remembered and still waited for. 

On such a day, we dream, thou wentest down, 

Through woody shadows out on open fields, 

Child's fingers in each hand. A tumbled wall, 

A lane, more woods, a turnpike, farmyards — then 

The quiet village and the village green. 

In silence of sweet sabbath soothed with bells. 

There in the meeting-house thou sattest down, 
Straight-backed and grave beyond thy children's ken. 
Who loved the slanted windows — leaking sky 
And dusty chestnut leaves and locust song — 
More than the preacher and his deep-toned prayer. 
Through all the sermon thou wast still the same. 
Hearing of life hereafter, heaven and hell. 
Of righteousness and judgment and the pains 
That follow closely on all evil done. 

Returning over fields, sedate and slow. 
Hands behind back, thy children out before. 
It must be thou didst breathe, oh, surely, some 
Old, pagan joy of fallows, and wide fields 
[71] 



The House That Was 



Stacked stiff with grain; of free, soft sky 
And children's voices, Indian-ambushing. 
It must be, too, the sadness of the time, 
The fade of autumn sparing not its hand, — 
Of death foreshadowed and not far, prevailed, 
And somewhat cried in thee. 

Oh, surely, thou 
Didst dread to die; to let warm life turn pale 
And in thy lips be kissing-bright no more. 
Surely there came of thee a pagan prayer 
For one deep draught of such a depth bi joy, 
Oblivion should not blemish it nor time 
Set down in dust of bitterness, to die: — 
One spark of beauty beaten beyond pain; 
One breath of flowers that not just mortal are. 

Of what chimed seas on what enchanted shore 
Art resonant, thou empty shell, that art 
So naked hollow, hearing now no more? 
From what gray dawning on a sightless sea 
Didst thou set sail? What winds of prophecy 
Went with thee, — who prepared thy prow; 
By what pale stars who steered thee, moving on 
Through dreaming twilights for unfathomed years? 

There was a whisper in thy heart, a song 
Older than time, younger than break-of-day; — 
The voice of winds in tree-tops before dawn; 
Of children, laughing over fields, in June; 
[72] 



The House That Was 



Of rain on roofs, at nightfall; or soft waves 
Down wet, brown beaches, sighing back to sea; — 
Of beauty touched with lips . . . and lost again. 

What went from thee that heard? What echoes died 

In thy deep caves; what ecstasy arose 

From thy so silent peaks, and soared in sky? 

Out of thy listening, what throated bird; — 

From thy still pools, what bubbles of drowned song? 

Thou art as silent as untroubled strings. 

Long mute, a master sang upon; as calm 

As a faint, forest lake, where winds have gone away. 

Thou art a rock dead oceans wrestled with. 

And left forever, channeled with their flame. 

For winter snows to sleep with, and chill sky. 

And yet, there is a sound in thee, cold skull. 
Too cobweb-thin for ears, too frail to die. 
Such sound as follows singing, when a bird 
Has fluted once and flown, and sings no more: 
Such sound as breathes out petal sighs that fall 
When stars touch roses, or a late moon strays 
Through sleeping gardens of the long ago. 

Over that arching brow how tenderly 
Does time turn back; with what reluctant feet 
The wasting seasons pause and pass it by. 
How reverent the sunlight is, with those 
So empty eyes; how lovingly the gloom 
Fills the bare vaults where beauty burned away! 
[73] 



TO THE VERY TENDER CRESCENT MOON 

PRECIOUS in incompleteness, — 
Of such surpassing sweetness 
As dreams are drawn upon! 
A baby's sigh; 
A white moth's thigh; 
The lift of lids that flutter 
On love too faint to utter; 
Slim maiden, soon 
Made wife, slim moon, 
In your exceeding fleetness 
All youth is summed and gone. 



[74] 



IDYL 

I HEAR the humming of a swarm of bees 
Trailing the honey through the cherry trees. 
Whose petaled blossoms break like foaming seas 

On misty shores of faraway; 
And ever, through my idle, open door, 
Sweet scents of morning myriadly pour; 
Summer, just breathing, sleeps upon the floor; — 
The year is Youth, the month is May. 

Sweet Musidora, with your Gypsy hair 
And eyes of sudden shadow, where, oh, where 
Is there a forest glade so fitting fair. 

To hold you as you are, to-day? — 
When all the little leaves are spread for you. 
And all the blossoms lift a head for you. 
And every dew drop is unshed for you? — 

Say, if you know one; say, oh, say! 

One moment, silent, looking very wise. 

She ponders me; the next, with dancing eyes. 

She takes my hand, and out of doors she flies. 

The garden and the orchard fir^t; 
A stretch of high-road, then a broEen wall; 
A pathway over fields, the rise and fall 
[75] 



Idyl 



Of fallows; then — a thicket, and the tall 
Aisles of a minster, green-immersed. 

Here, if ever, Musidora, is the place, — 
(I pillow me on moss, with upturned face. 
And through the foliage just dimly trace 

White clouds and darling stains of blue) 
To put all mask and mystery behind, 
And be like children, met with open mind. 
(The leaves are singing overhead, the wind 

Is after them) I will: will you? 

A peal of laughter: can it be? — I look. 
To find myself, the cause of it, forsook, 
And Musidora, barefoot, in a brook. 

This is your answer, then, arch maid? 
No sooner seen than done; off hose and shoon! 
(Brook water frolics to a lively tune: 
The boughs bend low, the leaves are whisper- 
strewn) 

I am a child, and you? (We wade.) 



[76] 



ONCE UPON A TIME 

THEY told me beauty was all, long ago, 
Lived out and sealed in cerements of cold 
time; 
Tombed with sad obsequies, wept and laid low, 
Beyond the reach of subsequent renown: 
The age of gold, they said, had spent its prime. 
Once; and forever after, blown sublime. 
In one long sunset hopelessly went down. 

They told no truth, for as bright flowers decline, 
And leave pale ghosts for winds to waft away. 
Beauty but breathed, and lo, like Prosperpine, 
Their gloomings vanished, suddenly, in air: 
Beauty but breathed, once, gently, half in play. 
And now I know there is no yesterday 
Where beauty breathes; time is not tasted there. 

I celebrate no fount whose waters flow 
From sacred hill-slopes, haunted of old rhyme 
Since raptured Helicon burst out below, 
And Aganippe matched the Hippocrene 
Impatient Pegasus struck forth from slime; 
But a mere brook in no heroic time, 
Flowing through meadows full of early green. 
[77] 



Once Upon a Time 



Nor sing I, as did shepherds, piping praise. 
Of nymphs they startled, featly, by a stream, 
At top of noon, when flocks were left to graze; — 
Haply a herdsman, seeking out some shade. 
In reverie the while, half thought, half dream; 
Who saw, then luckless lost, in one white gleam, 
The naked shoulders of no mortal maid. 

The brook I sing has no such deities. 
But white of cloud and dark of end-of-day; 
Its willows weep no broken threnodies, 
Over its pebbles flute no pipes of Pan; 
Yet lovely is, no less: the lips of May 
Bend to its brink, and all along its way 
A new song opens where each ripple ran. 

Here you and I, one day, spring-wandering. 
Came, through the fields, the sun was hot, and 

high; 
And laughing, all alone, nor parleying, 
Doff'ed hose and shoon, a very girl and boy. 
To try (we knew, but still, we had to try) 
Whither it went and whence it came — and why; 
And lost, at once, the purpose in the joy. 

A falling tree had bridged a quiet pool; 
You perched on it, and swung a searching toe. 
Just reaching, just — oh, bliss — the waters cool. 
While I (you urged) went boldly overside 
[78] 



Once Upon a Time 



Into brave depths: then, straightway, must we go 
Where rapids called us, out of sight, below, 
And revelled all the way there, through the tide. 

A very girl and boy; so went our play, 
And never thought between us, once, there fell 
(We were as young as shadows, and as gay) 
Of how we looked, or what we said — -or wore. 
Till, sudden, turning; why, I cannot tell — 
I walked not earth but fields of asphodel — 
A wind blew heaven wide; I passed the door. 

Marble and bronze have great artificers 

Touched into startled likeness of their dreams, 

And left a few, unaging visioners 

To hold forever, faintly, from afar, 

To some lost beauty trailing off its beams 

Beyond the silence, and the sound of streams, — 

The last, thin radiance of a fallen star. 

Singers have been who caught the drifting fire;- 
Some low-born boy impoverished of gold, 
Who trembled past the outposts of desire. 
And uttered, in his crescent-mooned strain. 
Imperishable secrets of untold. 
Unearthly blisses raining down from old, 
Forbidden sanctities of vanished pain. 

Bui living beauty, beauty breathing-on, — 
No chisel questions it, no pale lips rim: 
[79] 



Once Upon a Time 



Dear God! — to see you where the wind had gone, 
All in soft shadow, still as Paradise, 
Knee-deep, and lifting from the water's brim 
Your looped-up garments . . . Star-eyed seraphim 
Came down and kissed you, kneeling, with their 
eyes. 

You never knew; two heart-beats long, no more, 

I worshipped — yet, eternities were they: 

You stirred, I woke, we frolicked as before. 

You never knew what light was in your hair, — 

What rush of rapture caught my soul away; 

But I — I know there is no yesterday 

Where beauty breathes; time is not tasted there. 



[80] 



TO AN OLD FAMILY SERVANT 

DEAD? — but I cannot think it; he who wore 
His livery of smiles undimmed to sight; 
Our childhood's fellowship who kept, of right; 
Whose loyalty ... no belted earl had more. 
He stood so often at the stable door, 
Lifting his lantern, signaling "Good night!" — 
To follow me half home with friendly light: 
I cannot think ... he never failed before. 

Yes, it is I who stand, good friend of years. 
Blinded with shadow, where your footfalls fell; 
To cast the glimmer of my childhood's tears 
Beyond the dark, beyond the funeral bell, 
Beyond the silence; I — God grant he hears — 
Who lift the lantern, now: good-night! — farewell! 



[81] 



TO A WHITE-THROATED SPARROW 

NOT to the near thou singest, bird 
Of the cold northern skies; 
Far-called thou art, a voice unheard 
Speaks, and thy wakeful heart is stirred, 
And in like key replies. 

Beyond the breath of balsam pine, 
And lakes where startled loon 
Echo from cliffs that cool the shine 
Of daybreak, or in coves combine 
With wolves to haunt the moon: 

Beyond the dip of paddles; where 

No lighted tent can be; 
Beyond the smoke of birch, to bear 
Clean fragrance through still twilight air,- 

There is that calls to thee. 

Thou answerest, and art again 

Made eager to reply; 
Like children down a country lane 
Calling at parting, each one fain 

To blow the last good-by. 
[82] 



To a White-Throated Sparrow 

Rapt singer, in thy sharpened ken 

There trembles a dim word; 
Thou hearest what is hid from men, 
Thou art divine, a dreamer, then — 

Only a brown-backed bird. 



[83] 



PSYCHE 

' I '^HERE'S a softness in her eyes as of stars in 
A spring; 

In her voice there runs the ripple of low streams; 
There's the wonder in her glances of the moon's 
imagining, 
And her ways are like the flutter of late dreams. 

I have seen her in her going to the wells at dawn, 

When her feet were taking kisses from cool grass; 
I have heard her bring her laughter, with the twi- 
light, up the lawn. 
And the sound was falling wine-drops in clear 
glass. 

Through the years' gray drift and sorrow she comes 
eternal still. 
With the old, old breathless music in her eyes: 
Could a hand be stretched to hold her? ... I am 
left a lonely hill, 
And a golden, darting swirl of butterflies. 



[84] 



w 



WHEN THE WIND BLOWS 



HEN the wind blows, Thisbe, from a soft, south 
land. 

And the eyes of sleeping summers dimly stir; 
I am minded of a maiden widi an idle, out-stretched 
hand, — 
She is calling, and I follow, follow her. 



When the wind blows, Thisbe, over roofs of rain. 
And the withered leaves are scattered from the 
limb; 
There rides a reckless spirit on the whirling weather- 
vane, — 
He is calling, and I follow, follow him. 

Oh, but when the wind blows, Thisbe, through my 
door. 
And I open to a moon upon the sea; 
'Tis a voice of flame that fills me, crying, "Youth! — 
f orevermore ! " — 
And I follow, and I follow — follow thee. 



[85] 



AFTER A THOUSAND YEARS 

THOU knowest not: yet the warm white clover 
Fills with the song of sun-browed bees, 
And ships are weighing, the wide-world over 

To lift bright foam on forgetful seas. 
Thou knowest naught of the south wind's freight- 
ing, 
Tossed in the far-off surge of trees; — 
Of sailor's hope, or lover's waiting: 
Unborn, thou knowest naught of these. 

What will avail to thee, not yet hearing, 

Rumors of lovers steeped in sighs; 
Of deep, deep kisses, warm and endearing, — 

Of red lips ripened, or downcast eyes? 
What will bring home to thee, not yet living, 

The joyful hazard of life's emprise; 
The leap of heart in the throes of giving 

All, to the utmost, prodigal- wise? 

Thow knowest naught of sea winds, soft breathing. 

Or inland pastures of fertile loam 
With bright, young blades from the stalk unsheath- 
ing. 
And nibbled roots where the white flocks roam: 
[86] 



After a Tlioumnd Years 



Naught are to thee the whispering heather, 
And orchards billowed in fragrant foam; — 

Naught the long light, and the golden weather, 
Clear, to the tip of its azure dome. 

Even as when the ebb tide is turning, 

Round the smooth stairs the current is still, — 
Lap-full with stars, no longer yearning 

To hurry seaward for good or ill; 
So will the dawn, just ere it wake thee. 

Pause to take breath on the topmost hill; 
Then into life it will plunge, and take thee; 

Then thou wilt drink, to the very fill. 

Light-footed, fleet, through sky-covered places; 

Prone on the earth, wearied-out with play; 
Running companions immortal races; 

Fighting world battles in fresh, warm hay: 
Knee-deep in trenches of sand, on beaches; 

Following brooks through a summer's day; 
Lost to the world, down cool, green reaches . . . 

All will be thine, in its own sweet way. 

Now . . . thou art not; with unthought-of flowers. 
And undreamed moonlight, perilous as wine; — 

With languid noons, and golden, soft showers, 
And sudden shivers of shade and shine 

A woman's hair makes, while she reposes; — 
With songs unsung, and beakers divine 
[87] 



After a Thousand Years 



Full of unquaffed youth, starlight, and roses 
Thou that art not, all these shall be thine. 

Thou knowest not : yet the warm, white clover 

Fills with the drone of sun-drenched bees, 
And ships are sailing the wide world over, 

Bitted with foam, on forgetful seas. 
Thou knowest naught of the precious freighting 

Coming ashore in the surge of trees; — 
Of summer's hope, and winter's waiting: 

Unborn, thou knowest naught of these. 



[88] 



FOR YOUTH 

O WORLD full of years, that yet art youthful for- 
ever, 

Wrinkled and yare; 
O world full of hearts that find in a day's en- 
deavor 

Too much to bear; 
world, for the dreams that life so soon will dis- 
sever, 

Receive our prayer. 

The children; — oh, give them fields, knee-deep in soft 
grasses. 

Wherein to hide, 
Wherein may be sprawled a length while Hunting- 
Blind passes, 

And where abide 
Tall daisies of June, and clumps of cloudy-haired 
lasses. 

Wonderful-eyed. 

Beguile them with gnarly-limbed trees, and fruit that 
beseeches 

Robbers to raid; 
[89] 



For Youth 

Allure them down brooks, and out on pebbly 
brown beaches, 

Featly to wade; 
Brings pools full of fish, and woods with Robin- 
Hood reaches, 

For outlaws made. 

Incite them with metes and bounds and a buried 
treasure 

Some pirate chief 
Pent up and forsook, for their particular 
pleasure; — 

Some swarthy thief, 
Tattooed with crimes, and sailing the sea at leisure. 
Till a coral reef 

Supplied retribution . . . leave the children the 
fancies 

Men have outgrown: — 
White petals invoked for sooth, and fluffs, for 
romances 

Breathlessly blown; 
That swales in the grass, and rings, are relics of 
dances 

By fairies sown; 

That winds in the woods are words and whispers of 
wonder ; 

Things that they knew 
[90] 



For Youth 

Long since, and forgot; and waves, when seas full 
of thunder, 

Breaking they brew, 
Are counsellors: — leave them the faith that lies 
under 

All that you do. 

Needs must that our bread be bought by dint and 
endeavor. 

With blood, and sweat; 
It needs that our eyes be clear, that our hands be 
clever 

The gain to get; 
Tis well that we heed, well that we travail for- 
ever, 

And yet . , , and yet . . . 



[91] 



COLLEGIAN 

LONG, long twilight, the indolent end of day; 
Voices like vagrances, drifting, the fragrances 
Sweet, of a song, are astray; 
Lights bloom, window by window, while 
We dream our dreams: shall we go? 
Presently, presently; we will go presently; — 
When we get ready to go-o. 
When we get ready to go. 

Moon-blown, over the blossoms the late winds die; 

Out of the shadows the brooks in the meadows 

Run full of stars from the sky; 

Deep sleep waits, like a melody 

Humming and happy and low: 

Presently, presently; we will go presently; — 

When we get ready to go-o, 

When we get ready to go. 

Far down under the rim of the cold, blue sea, 
Wonderful cargoes beset by embargoes 
Wait for such skippers as we; 
Bright eyes, wealth, fame and families 
Wait: shall we fare for them? No! 
Presently, presently; we will go presently; — 
When we get ready to go-o, 
When we get ready to go. 
[92] 



THE LITTLE BOY TO THE LOCOMOTIVE 

BIG iron horse with lifted head. 
Panting beneath the station shed, 
You are my dearest dream come true; — 
I love my Dad; I worship you! 

Your noble heart is filled with fire. 
For all your toil, you never tire. 
And though you're saddled-up in steel, 
Somewhere, inside, I know you feel. 

All night in dreams when you pass by. 
You breathe out stars that fill the sky, 
And now, when all my dreams are true, 
I hardly dare come close to you. 



[93J 



THE LOCOMOTIVE TO THE LITTLE BOY 

BOY, whose little, confiding hand 
Your father holds, why do you stand 
Staring in wonderment at me, — 
Poor thing of iron that I be? 

Your unsophisticated eyes 
Are full of beautiful surprise; 
And oh, how wonderful you are, 
You little, golden morning-star! 

Poor thing of iron that I be, 

A mortal man imagined me; 

But you — you drop of morning dew — 

God and His heaven are globed in you. 



[94] 



TO THE ABSOLUTE 

OWIND of death that blowest in the night, 
That blowest, and art still; 
O icy hand that comest with thy rite 
Of cruel terror, just before the light, 

The darkest hour of ill; 
breath of fate that whisperest away 
The loves of years, the friendings of to-day, 
Have ye not yet your fill? 

So must it be forever, even so? — 

The falling tide of change 
Bears out to lost horizons all we know. 
All we have loved and clung to, long ago, 

Leaving us — something strange: 
The dear, familiar lights die out at last; 
The late, lost voices fading down the blast, — 

They too, pass out of range. 

O hidden life, life, unattained! 

Not only in our dreams, 
But given inwardly, and unexplained. 
Through every word and memory ingrained, — 

Deep as undrying streams: 
Thou comest out of other realms than sight, 
[95] 



To the Absolute 



There is naught earthly in the glamour light 
Which on thy vesture gleams. 

There is naught earthly, yet thou comest here 

Askance, and half -astray; 
As waysight lights, that suddenly draw near • 
To railroad wanderers, blaze, and disappear, 

So thou art torn away: 
But ever, on the darkened window glass. 
Our weary world goes with us, and alas! 

Thou art a dream, alway. 

Thou art a dream, a somewhere out beyond 

The sunset and the sea; 
Thou art just failed of by the fingers fond 
Of silver moons; thy magic shores respond 

Only to melody; 
Only to waves that fling their hearts to die 
Far out where souls are sailors, and the sky 

Is breaking over thee. 

Thou art a dream, that moves not in the mind; 

Thou art not thought, nor seen 
With lidded eyes; thou feedest not the blind 
Of mortal vision, — rapturous, undefined, 

Eternally serene! 
Thy beauty waits no faltering, feeble hand; 
We part the petals, nor do understand 

That thou should'st slip between. 
[96] 



To the Absolute 



But sometimes, as on country roads we hear 

Wind-murmured wires hum; 
Thy breath makes music to an awestruck ear, 
Wild music of wild airs, of bliss and fear, 

And hearts tb heaven come. 
Thy whisper wakes what only slept before; 
Our silent souls are silent now no more, 

We speak, who once were dumb. 

But man is man, and may not lift too far 

His earthly, frail reply; 
Man is but man; in pattern like a star. 
His utmost efforts in this twilight are 

A fitful firefly; 
He may not . . . ah! — to know, and yet to fail! 
His hands may tremble to, not touch, the Grail 

That hovers from on high. 

The whirlwind passes, lust and shame and sin, 

And anger passion-blind; 
Remorse burns out, a flame, a deadly djinn; 
And seven devils wait to welter in 

The smitten, tortured mind: 
And after these, a voice exceeding small. 
Lovelier than lutes, or waves, or waterfall 

Leaving green woods behind. 

There comes a voice, but lingers not for long; 
A sighing in the trees, 
[97] 



To the Absolute 



It also passes, and the shadows throng 
Once more; once more old fears grow strong, 

And ancient fantasies: 
In doubt and darkness, baffled and misled, 
We walk the world, and hear, far out ahead. 

The thunder of veiled seas. 



[98] 



DUE NORTH 

ENOUGH: you have the dream, the flame; 
Free it henceforth: 
The South has given you a name; 
Now for the North. 

Unsheathe your ship from where she lies, 

In narrow ease; 
Fling out her sails to the tall skies. 

Flout the sharp seas. 

Beyond hieak headlands wistful burn 

Warm lights of home; 
In shutting darkness frays astern, 

Far-spun, the foam. 

Come wide sea-dawns, that empty are 

Of wet sea sand; 
Come eves, that lay beneath a star 

No lull of land. 

And whether on faint iris wings 

Of fancy borne, 
Or blown and breathed, the south wind brings 

So much to mourn! 
[99] 



Due North 



The deep wood-shadows, they that drew 

So softly near; 
The violets all veined with blue, — 

Be strong, and steer! 

There is a silence to be found, 

And rested in; 
A stillness out of thought, where sound 

Can never win. 

There is a peace, beyond the stir 

Of wind or wave; 
A sleeping, where high stars confer 

Over the brave. 

The south winds come, the south winds go, 

Caressing, dear; 
Northward is silence, and white snow, — 

Be strong, and steer! 

For in that silence, waiting, lies. 

Untroubled, true; 
Oh, eager, clear — like love in eyes — 

The soul of you. 



[100] 



THE SAILOR WHO HAS SAILED 

I HAVE dreamed the dream of the unknown sea, 
And stood on the sightless shore; 
I have looked in the eyes of reality, 
And I am young no more. 

There were old sea-kings that led me far 

With songs of the ancient quest; 
There were sails that followed the still north-star, 

And helms that hung to the West: 

There were speeches fair, and stories told, 

And much that was promised me; 
There were great sea-chests, and hidden gold; 

"Sail out," — they said,— "and see!" 

I have sailed the reach of a trade-wind's hand. 

And left long wakes behind; 
I have battled out from a lee-shore land. 

And fought with a gale gone blind: 

I have dallied in harbors, and moored at quays. 

And jostled the world's worst men; 
I have followed the tide to the utmost seas. 

And I am come back again. 
[101] 



The Sailor Who Has Sailed 

There is treasure-trove in my hands, but gold 

I bring not back with me; 
There are songs on deck and in the hold, 

But no wild minstrelsy. 

I have dreamed the dream of the unknown sea; 

I have sailed from the sightless shore; 
I have looked in the eyes of reality, 

And I am young — no more. 



[102] 



THE PRISON HOUSE 

THIS house is winsome with perpetual glow 
Of given hearts, each in another found, 
And is forever humming with warm sound; — 
The princely future feasting the long ago. 

Rare friends there be, with beautiful straight eyes, 
Comrades of fireside bloom and lifelong hail. 
Matching at jests by rafter-light; the avail 
Of hot-blood youth, mellowed and much more wise. 

And many pleasant books therein there be, 
Racy old apple-cheeks, time loved so much. 
It ripened them; romances, plays, and such. 
Spiced in the fumes of ancient history. 

Life might be golden there — I do not say — 
With love and friends, and books to browse among; 
Many a toast and many a troth's unsung; 
Chimney and logs suffice for many a day. 

But there are rifts among the roof -trees, where 
Planets hold high, and sometimes I have heard, 
Far-oflF, the sudden outcry of a bird, 
Answering a joy, heart-stopped, in open air. 
[103] 



The Prison House 



Sidelong I've looked, and caught the unearthly stain 
Of a great sunset, drifted on the glass, 
And over me smelled flowers . . . Prisoner, alas! 
Deep in my chair, I drudge at life again. 



[104] 



IN AN ANTHOLOGY 

THIS is the world, and in these pages lie 
Our little lives a- written long ago; 
Here is the all that ever we shall know 
Of life and hearts, of earth and sea and sky; 
Here are sweet words for every passer-by, 
Most precious words from lovers' lips that flow; 
Sighs here, and pain, and wistful afterglow; 
Even of wildflowers pressed before they die. 

Most gentle reader, take, then, to thy fill, 
From these faint bygone blossoms splendid toll; 
Out of their sweetness living sweets distil, 
And these high hearts — engrave them on thy soul! 
Ah, give them resurrection, and they will 
Bear up thy wings and lift thee to their goal 



[105] 



THE WASHINGTON STATUE IN WALL STREET 

IMMORTAL more than bronze, in bronze he stands, 
Through all our tumult unperturbed, sedate; 
Coming, clear-eyed, out of the scorch of fate. 
Rough reins and sword-hilts calloused in his hands. 

How large he looms beyond this troubled hill! 
How, lost in balancings of life and death, 
He heeds the flutter of his country's breath. 
And bids "I crave you, gentlemen, be still!" 

This was the man who toiled through brutal seas 

And broke the dreadful shadow of a throne; 

Who supped with swords, and watched all night 

alone, 
Far off, in some great silence, on his knees. 



[106] 



FIFTY YEARS AFTER 
1910 

IT matters now no more whose eyes were best, — 
Which saw at nearest hand the truest truth; 
It matters, that both poured their clearest youth 
And bravest treasure at the truth's behest. 
Truth has her north and south, and each to each, 
Being a whole, wide world apart, appears 
Far gone in error, bigots with stuffed ears: 
They fly to arms; and perish in the breach. 
And yet . . . they died for truth . . . both sides 

... we know. 
Their blood still warms the interlying land; 
In every breeze their haunting bugles blow, 
And flitting shadow-shapes, like storm clouds meet 
In forest glades; and where old bridges spanned 
Deep streams, are heard, still, still, their tramping feet^ 

They leave us not, these dead, but gird us round. 
Full panoplied, alert, on either hand; 
Marching with her, the reunited land, — 
Making her borders undisputed ground. 
They leave us not, whose handing-on is ours, — 
Unselfishness, and valor, and bright deeds! 
By them we know 't is not in vain he bleeds 
Whose country rears her children on such flowers. 
[107] 



ROUGH-HEW THEM HOW WE WILL 
1913 

FAR-FLYING warders turn and tell 
Of thunders in the Dreadful Hills; 
Pale prophets of destruction swell 
Beneath our darkened window-sills: 
Virtue is dead, they say, and song; 
And civic pride is sore beset; 
Riches are right, and honor, wrong; 
The world remembers — to forget. 

How are the walls of Babylon 
Tumbled and moulderous and gray! — 
And how her ruined Parthenon 
The soul of Athens bears away! 
Slow-moving as a mist of sleep, 
The tides of destiny befall; 
Sand cities reared heap on heap; — • 
The ocean overruns them all. 

Yet are the pinnacles of gold 
Beleagued by our heart's desire, 
And still the hands of mortals hold 
The anguish of immortal fire: 
[108] 



Rough-Hew Them How We Will 



Death over death, the ramparts rise, 
And life on life, the builders go; 
The spirit in the coral dies. 
The splendors of the coral grow. 

What patient orbits lived and burned. 
Of ages ere we came to birth? 
What spent eternities returned? — 
What aeons of a single earth? 
Deep from the dust of ancient kings 
Break forth their battlefields again; 
The saga of the deathless rings 
From twice two thousand years of men. 



[109] 



THESE UNITED STATES 

Feb. 7, 1917 

(To Alan Seeger) 



NEW, for the most part; very, very new. 
Flimsy houses, mostly turned askew; 
Streets that straggle, where, not long ago, 
Timber stood, then cows grazed, now papers blow. 
Much too busy to be tidy, bent 
On being bigger — one big circus tent. 
Somewhat slangy; not devoid of cheek; 
Loving noise, and loving best to speak. 
Swayed by headlines; governed by a shout; — 
Nine days of wonder, then a new one's out. 
Bashful in nothing; reverent in few; 
New, for the most part; very, very new. 
But — beneath the newness, in behind 
All the brag and splurge and jest, we find 
This: Old memories of homespun days. 
Candle-lit; of quiet, sabbath ways 
Won from wildernesses, fervent prayer 
Given in peril's proof; young feet worn bare, 
[110] 



These Umted States 



Hands tough-trained, and level-looking eyes 
Keen on gunsights, calm as evening skies; 
Memories of battle, richly drowned 
In warm life-blood, heroes-wrapped-around, — 
Deep, too deep for tears, not spoken of 
Save by that great love which answers love; 
Memories of old songs, carried far 
Over wide prairies, past peaks that are 
Torches to the sunrise, past the spires. 
Star-outlined, of trees; by rain-ringed fires 
Gleaned, and sung again on wind-bleached foam 
With brave ships for China, praising home. 
Proudly, to strange skies; most sweet, most fair 
Songs, the old, old same songs, everywhere. 
Memories and going deeper — dreams. 
Dreams brought over seas, the first faint gleams; 
Cherished, through storm cherished; dim and pale 
But not dying dreams; still held, still hale. 
Still with haughty stars defended, still. 
Aloof, like eagles, brooding their bright will. 

II 

New, for the most part; very, very new. 
Anglo-Saxon, German, Celt and Jew, 
Latin, Armenian, Negro, Slav, Chinese, 
Scandinavian, Hindoo, Dutch — all these. 
Foreign tongues, not light to extirpate; 
Feuds, hard-dying, Old-World, out of date. 
Huddled herds in cities; labor, lined, 
[111] 



These United States 



Often, with backward looks; love, left behind 
Seed wild-sown the wind has foisted far; 
Rude wave-welter of all creeds that are. 
Gallant the ship; a motley crowd the crew; — 
New for the most part, very, very new. 
But — beneath the newness, in behind 
All the warp and tug and strain, we find 
This: Old hungerings of long-dead days 
Spirit-bowed; of cruel, down-trod ways 
Sore with subjugation; backs that meant 
Overseers' whip-lashes, the bent, 
Yoked abasement of once noble wills 
Lunging at thongs between their masters' thills,- 
Beasts of burden being; hungerings 
Germinate in darkness, gouged by kings, 
Bruised by heels of armies, overborne. 
Time on time, by conquest, despot-torn; 
Living, yet, miraculous alive; 
Daunted not, continuing to thrive 
Towards the sunlight; hungerings to be 
Shackles through, and sea-glad, and got free;- 
Hungerings for open spaces, wide 
Of horizon, reaching out; to stride 
Fields not fenced a summer's day, and be 
Happy at moonrise; to get free . . , free. 
Hungerings, and going deeper — fires. 
Fires brought over seas, immense desires, 
Smouldering, subterranean; smothered, dim 
But not dying fires; still lodged, still grim, 
[112] 



These United States 



Still with stubborn griefs defended, still 
Anchored like iron rock-deep in proud will. 

Ill 

Dreams. Fires. Fraught clouds from Europe blow, 
Whose rampired walls full sulphurously glow 
With battleflare at sunrise; overseas 
Breaks the beached foam of wasting panoplies, 
And faintly, as in sea-shells, far away, 
The cannon thunder whispers night and day. 
Fires. Dreams. In factory belch fuliginous, 
In caisson gloom and skyey balanced truss; 
By cobweb rails to fabled Ophirs spun; 
On lapping tides; down darkened streets, is done — 
Gestation of a giant doomed to birth — 
The forging of a new and mightier earth. 
A mightier. And a better? Not by ease — 
By shoulder shrugs and oiled immunities. 
Not by midnight riot. Once again. 
They shall inherit most who most live plain. 
Ay, fear it not, the little breed that knows 
Nothing but wantonness, it goes — it goes. 
A bolder blood shall stride into the part; 
Shall take the stage; shall wield a manlier art, 
And put a shame on mimic. Even now 
Is troubled in his sleep the Sleeper's brow. 
Unrest, like mist, grows ghostlier. It seems 
The Thinker questions. . . . Travail. 
Fire and dreams. 

[113] 



These United States 



Dark overhead the clouds of Europe blow, 
Heat-lightning-lit, dull, ominous and, low. 
Not yet, not yet the hour, but, tryst to keep, 
A spirit moves abroad upon the deep, 
And will be stirring soon. And will be sung. 
Soon, to a clarion of nobler tongue 
Than inks on ticker-tapes or glibly reads 
From pompous records of parochial greeds 
Promulgate for the People. . . . Midnight blue. 
Stars of these States a-shining through, 
The dawn awaited. Dreaming, peaks and spires; — 
The house still locked and dreaming. 
Dreams — and fires. 

IV 

Thou whose full time both buds and stars await; — 
On the curved cup of destiny whose hold 
Permits no bubble world its concave gold 
Too buoyant to relinquish; at whose gate 
Love takes her lantern and goes out to Hate, 
Bending above the battle's bleeding mould; 
Our country thou in fire and dreams enfold — 
In forest freshness, her, thy consecrate. 
There must be some strange beauty hid in her, 
With withes uncut by sharp awakening sword; 
Some precious gift not veined, some truth of power 
Thou art maturing, great artificer. 
Fools we, and blind; impatient of an hour; 
But make her worthy, for we love her. Lord! 
[114] 



A PINE BOX— AND THE FLAG 

THAT tree once touched the stars. The flame 
Went down it of the dawn; 
Brave, whistling airs awoke it. Came 
Death to the heart of it, straight-aim . . . 
The steel could be withdrawn. 

That way is best: the naked thing 

In its own dignity. 
Sweet wood, to which wood odors cling 
Still, and what a proud covering 

For fallen man and tree. 

Proud flag! — how meekly it is prone 

On that residual breast! 
Asks not his name — nor was he known 
Widely — just loves him; that alone, 

Putting aside the rest. 

New wishes in those stars; new prayers 

Said in those precious veins: 
New trees, new dawns, new boisterous airs; 
But no new flag! — 'tis theirs, 'tis theirs! — 

Their blood in it remains. 

[115] 



THE HOUSING OF THE BANNERS 
(To Joyce Kilmer) 

I HAD a vision: Near an open sky, 
In aisles of trees, 
i^With windy songs and rustling tread, went by 

Dark panoplies. 
They might have been the music of night air, 
Or shadows of the stars; no bugle blare. 
No shattering shot; I looked — and they were there, 
Cadenced like seas. 

They moved one way, as clouds move when the moon 

Is being drowned; 
They drew along a singing, but the tune 

Was less than sound: 
And every marcher came as he was gone, 
So like, so many did I look upon; 
The wood was full of faces, pale and wan. 

None turned around. 

Dry leaves and I went with them, drifting slow 

As might a sleep 
That followed, waking, dreams it fain would know 

And could not keep; 

[116] 



The Hcmsing of the Banners 

Till leagues were lost: then rugged ground ahead, 
And stars, and then a silence, far outspread. . . . 
So on a hillside wildflower stalks are shed 
When reapers reap. 

I saw them lie, down through the stubble grass, 

And ruined shade; 
Not all were whole, not all full-limbed, alas, 

But, sad betrayed 
By ebbing starlight, up that hill lay all. 
And down that hill and far beyond recall, 
Tumbled in windrows widening; whose fall 

Was unafraid. 

Whose fingers reached toward daylight. 
Came the stir 

Of one small breeze. 
As might a smile be, pitiful, from her 

Whose child would please 
With songs for sorrow; then, it seemed, a sigh 
That candle flames might steady through went by, 
And brought a shudder underneath that sky, 

Of sore unease. 

A miracle! — like hairs upon my head. 

In cold accord 
They stood; those multitudes of stretched-out dead. 

Straight and restored. , 

And now were ranks, and now were flags unfurled, 
[117] 



The Housing of the Banners 

And now went out a music on the world, 
Wherefrom broke words, like bubbles, darkly 
swirled, — 
Pricked with a sword. 

"0 warm earth air, to feel the dawn again 

Down hillsides go; 
To hear flocked cattle wake, and the refrain 

Of far cocks blow! 
What gifts we gave who stripped us of these things: 
No more, ah, never, steeped in blossomy springs. 
Shall life brim over us in opening rings. 

Or pale cheeks glow? 

"Shall love be never rosied for our sakes. 

More, as of old? 
Nor sunlight fall through apple-boughs, in flakes 

Of fluttering gold? 
Where shall we learn the like of sudden feet 
Coming down garden walks, beat to heart's beat? 
O precious life! — passionate and sweet 

Tales to be told! 

"A murmur in the hills; a waft away 

To beckoning deeds; 
So — it were best to longer not a day: 

Who hears it, heeds. 
Spirits are dipped in starlight long before 
They drink the sun, and starlight sways them more. 
[118] 



The Housing of the Bcmners 

Dreams; — or remembrance? Youth runs bright on 
war, 
And bleeds — and bleeds. 

"There is a troth beyond the leap of eyes; 

A pledge too far 
For traveling light to flicker across skies 

From star to star: 

warm earth air, no more, no more for you 

These banners, with their good brave scars. They too 
Are Truth's: you shall not stir them. be true. 
Earth, as they are! 

"And in the deep years be in mind of them. 

When shadows go 
Through forests, or touch hilltops, or a stem 

Lifts heart aglow 
From treacherous glooms. Remember us, awhile. 
With gifts of open doorways, and a smile 
Or two, when a bird sings in some sweet aisle 

We used to know." 

1 heard no more, for came a great fanfare 

Of golden sound; 
Awakening trumpets, mounting, stair by stair. 

In spiral round: 
And lo, a cloudy roof and window stain 
On ancient columns lifting their clear grain 
Through such a calm as never breathes again, — 

So deep its swound. 

[119] 



The Housing of the Banners 

On either side of that long nave there hung 

Trophies most dear, 
And all high deeds were there that song has sung, — 

Godlike to hear; 
Only a little, yet — so far, so high — 
Those walls were theirs the world will not let die; 
The cross upon the altar was like sky 

A lake draws near. 

The trumpets touched pride's pinnacle, and broke. 

In spray outspread; 
A cloud of banners filled the air like smoke, 

And all those dead 
Shook earth as might embattled seraphim, 
With one great shout. The silence seemed to swim 
With heavenly color, as that youth's o'er-brim 

Was harvested. 

I was alone, to drink the drowsy air 

Of languid day; 
The dawn remembered banners; stair by stair 

The birds climbed. They 
Upon the hillside . . . they were poppies, blown 
With sleep. It is not grief's high part to own 
Tears. Rather, smiles! I plucked me, all alone, 

A red bouquet. 



[120] 



REQUIESCAT 
(April 23rd, 1916) 

THAT marble bust marks Shakespeare's bones; 
A perfect likeness" — Cook's guide drones. 
"He wrote those words: they're poetry. 
That's all. There's nothing else to see." 
Twittering birds in the trees outside; 
Peace in the church: gone crowd and guide: 
Peace in the church: the afternoon 
Wanes long; the creaking verger soon 
Comes with his keys. One night the more 
Will close above this chancel floor, 
And largest chink let in no gleams. 
What meant he by his Hamlet's "dreams"? — 
His Lear and old man's madness? Came 
Horror, at last, to tinge the flame 
Prometheus plucked from heaven; and he? — 
Looked he too deep? Such things can be. 
Our gain is purchased so. 'Twere best, 
Just as he asked, to let him rest. 
Centuries under, ceiled with stones, — 
That marble bust marks Shakespeare's bones? 
The very mention, lark-like, goes 
Sky-clambering in clearest rose, 
[121] 



Requieseat 

And thicket copses, one by one, 
Wake, answering, and bugles run 
From green, enchanted glade to glade; 
Courtiers, huntsmen cavalcade; 
Battles are brewed; braves loves beat high; 
Adventure quickens, hounds give cry; — 
Youth, youth is up ; the world is young. 
And life, rich life, is still unsung. 
Shakespeare! — warm sunlight breaks in twain 
Death; and the violets bloom again. 



[122] 



GRACE COURT, BROOKLYN HEIGHTS 

TURNED eight o'clock; the street lights thro 
Exactly as in long ago, 
Deep garden glooms, and traceries 
From out of overhanging trees. 
Two stars — the Twins — against a sky 
Of April violets, fading, lie 
Just as they used to do; the bay 
Utters old voices, far away, 
And in the church across the stones 
An organ grumbles undertones 
To little piping trebles, where 
A choir recites for Sunday prayer. 
The play, the scene are both the same; 
The plot — too far advanced — I blame 
For something sad in all around, 
Deeper than outward change would sound. 

The brook of boyhood runs away, 
An eager freshet, in a day. 
Oh, spring and night! — to feel again 
That after-supper high disdain; — 
That rush of wings, while daylight dies, 
For one more romp; that paradise 
Of being hatless, bouncing ball, 
With sweet spring twilight over all, 
[123] 



Grace Court, Brooklyn Heights 

And one late hurdy-gurdy, bent 
On bubbling out its merriment. 
Oh, bliss! — to have once more at hand 
A predatory German band, 
With bleating bass and martial blare, 
And no horizon anywhere 
But happiness of little boys 
Imbibing deep of big brass noise. 
A few days older, not much more. 
And proud romance is at the door, 
With flying hair, and floating laughter 
For home-from-school to follow after. 

How prone fond memory is to praise 
That happiest of holidays. 
When boys and girls would blithe embark, 
On bicycles, for Prospect Park! 
How fresh returns that early green 
Of shaven lawns; that feathered sheen 
Of shrubs and shoots; how good the sun. 
And youth, how lightly worn — and won! 
I never hear the slimmest rhymes 
That marched to music in those times, 
Without a stab of sudden pain. 
To shut my eyes and be again, 
Almost, and yet just not be, young 
As when those songs were being simg. 
I never hear The Geisha played, 
Or Sousa or The Serenade, 
[124] 



Grace Court, Brooklyn Heights 

But, radiant, out of memory burst 

The joyful times I heard them first. 

What heart-beats in those airs remain; — 

Absurd old measures tripped in twain! 

How golden, in the vagrant West, 

Like billowing clouds, those first and best 

And sweetest dances gleam and glow 

Above the hills of long ago! 

How bright with sails, their sea all smiles. 

They voyage for the happy isles! 

Those times! — when each ingredient soul 

Was stirred, as in a spirituous bowl. 

Into one glorious flame, that ended 

Only because the sun ascended; 

And long, long after, blessed, like prayer, 

The bloom of hearts upbreathing there. 

Those times! — who once did dance them through 

Will not forget. (Will you? Will you?) 

To-night the lilac bushes are 
An incense to the evening star; 
And little wafts of fragrance rise 
To where the tree-tops brush the skies. 
A soft wind down the twilight stair 
Tip-toes, and stirs the willow's hair: 
The poplar leaves, like ghosts in grey. 
Flutter frail things no tongue could say; 
And over all the gardens gleams 
The pallor of departed dreams. 
[125] 



STUDIES 
I 

APRIL IN THE CITY 

SOMEONE has brought arbutus for my table, 
Wood-wild arbutus, with pink, imprinted petals. 
I lifted the brown steins, and while they dripped out 

water, 
Cut the white thread that wound them too together. 
Now they reward me with deep sighs of fragrance, 
Breathing to shut lids lost Aprils, and the groping 
Through leaves and wet roots, happily to pluck them. 
Someone strikes chords now, grave, at the piano: 
They seek with probing fingers petals among heart- 
strings. 

11 

POUGHKEEPSIE BRIDGE 

Dainty, of thin steel, arched above faint water, 
One right line the bridge cuts black against the sunset; 
Under it are shadows blown, where windy-dark the 

river 
Wrinkles like gargoyles; on it a long freight train 
Stands, as a steed stands waiting a far errand. 
[126] 



Studies 

Whence does its dream come; out of what horizons? 

Star of headlight, and tall breath; gold to green of 
gloaming: 

On the hills a planet. Pilgrimage, or passing? 

Somewhere in remembrance such a search went for- 
ward. 



Ill 



EAST RIVER 

Stale of tides the harbor is, underneath the hawsers; 
Idle glut of flotsam, empty crates and fruit rinds: 
Noon, and not a ripple stirs the stagnant water. 
Yet the sea is felt there, somehow, for the counter. 
Shining black — a proud hull — serpentines reflections. 
Ribbon furls and knots of light, splinter-points and 

sunbursts. 
Can it be a ship sleeps, wrapping dreams around her, 
Keeping her, remotely, from all taint of evil? 
Ah, the open ocean, beautiful, unsullied! 



IV 



APPLE BOUGH 

Petals are ephemeral; soon to be forgotten; 
Blown like kisses of a dream over pale horizons. 
Leaned above the pasture bars, that bough of apple 
blossom 

[127] 



Studies 

Takes the sunset northward; cranes the hillside 
grasses; 

Stoops the caravan of stars low on wistful twilights; 

Yet upon a rift of sky lattices departure, 

Wears on ripeness, with sharp joy cleaves too close 
to beauty. 

Spring is at moment now; touched to point of rap- 
ture: 

Life is to drink. The quaffing makes thirst live for- 
ever. 



CRAIGIE HOUSE 

How shall the stars' pale fingers on that sundial 
Rewrite remembrance? How dream dreams, enclois- 

tered 
Deep in that old shadow-drift,' up and down that 

garden? 
Life here was opened once, a yellow rose, and ro- 
mance 
Paced its reluctance home, with pauses into by-paths. 
Music may be waked again, petal songs set stirring. 
But here no more the spring lights wings of flame 

on shoulders. 
That dim house. Colonial, sweet with first America, 
Let it be. The sharp moon scimiters the poplars. 
[128] 



Studies 



VI 



THE SWING 

Is there else could touch so perfectly, together. 
Youth and full May? Smiles were asleep without 

her. 
When she ran down that hillside, it was laughter 
Running upon the stage: plot and players brightened. 
Now in that swing — not knowing from a hilltop 
Gallery gods throw kisses through the leaves before 

her — 
She is her childhood, indecorous as blossoms; 
Nodding to clouds, the Mischief, then, maidenlike, 

retreating. 
What is youth? That bird knows. He'll make odes 

about her. 



VII 



BREAKNECK POND 

Why not here? The place gives dreams and gauzy 

dragon-flies. 
Barefoot must the search be after purple orchids: 
Over ooze and sedge grass, treading up the bubbles 
Hotly from the bottom mud, to the verge of water- 
lilies 
Ventured within reach of by dint of tangled tussocks. 
[129] 



Studies 

Boldly seized, the hollow stems, dripping sultry 
water, 

Yield; but ah, the petals, closed in charmed siesta, 

Sleep, like children hurried on a journey. 

All the water-rings make land. Theft so soon for- 
gotten? 

VIII 

WISHING TREE 

Bark, be-wrinkled, like a face, a hag's brown parch- 
ment; 

Leaves, a-rattle, dry as bones swinging at the cross- 
roads; 

Gnarled boughs wide, a tree stands, conjuring the 
sunset: 

Old Meg Merrilies at work; all the sky, before her. 

One red smoke; all the land, dumbly bending lower. 

Clip her waist, before she turns! Fondly, at your 
peril ! 

Wish, man; wish! The moment hovers. Breathe it 
out beside her! 

(Be it slyly done, it falls in her incantations.) 

\^ist! — 'tis well: the dead, blanched moon rises orer 
shoulder. 



[130] 



JACK 0' DREAMS 

(To Alfred Noyes) 

ON Brooklyn Bridge, at evening, coming home 
against the moon, 
From the city, where the toilers ebb and flow; 
In shadow that a tower cast, — 
As light as though a flower passed, 
I met him, but I knew him not, I knew him not — so 
soon. 
(I was from the city, then, and couldn't know.) 

Oh, nothing but a poor old man from sunny Italy, — 
From the land where the purple grapevines grow; 
A bundle on his back he bore, 
And bent as though his pack he wore 
From childhood; but I knew him not, and passed him 
carelessly. 
(There was hurry in my eyes; I couldn't know.) 

But out beneath the moon once more was nothing 
just the same. 
There was witchcraft in the spillings of that moon; 
No longer, now, half dead with care, 
I walked the clouds with head in air 
[131] 



Jack O' Dreams 



And feet that went, unwittingly, from tip to tip of 
flame. 
(There was witchcraft, and it caught me very 
soon.) 

The cables of the Bridge were strings, upon a violin — 
There were four of them and every one in tune; 
A wind that drew a cloud along 
Made music that was loud and strong; 
It only needed dancers for the revels to begin. 
(There was music — oh, such music! — and a moon.) 

Then — down the walk and up the walk and winding 
out and in, 
On a tarantelle and carmagnole they came; 
With skip and leap and laugh and shout, 
A giddy, dizzy raff and rout, 
They rode upon the heart-beats of that roaring violin. 
(There was thunder in the heart of it — and flame.) 

Grave citizens, immaculate, and toughs from out of 
town, 
And a dozen diff"erent specimens of girl; — 
Gay debutantes went hand in hand 
With factory girls from candy land, 
And subway guards cut capers round a Wall Street 
magnate's frown. 
(There were mighty strange companions in that 
whirl.) 

[132] 



Jack O' Dreams 



And, oh, the shine of happiness that lit them as they 
danced! 
It was more than moonlight over them — that shine; 
They gave it broadcast, each and all, 
From one small newsboy's screech and call: 
"Hey, mister!" — to a traffic-squad-policeman's horse, 
that pranced. 
(There was every sort of culture in that line.) 

To left, to right — they circled me, like Neptune's 
Nereid, 
In a chain without a single broken link; 
And all the lights around the rim 
Began to dip and bound and swim, — 
The Woolworth Tower winked at me, upon my soul, 
it did! 
(There was very solemn laughter in that wink.) 

Then, all at once, the moon was quenched in flying, 
frosty cloud, — 
^ust a moment, but it snapped the dizzy spell; 
The music changed to creaking heels. 
To tugboat toots, to shrieking wheels. 
And died beneath a trolley car that hauled a huddled 
crowd. 
(There was slaughter in the beating of that bell.) 

The dancers vanished, utterly, like witch-flame in a 
mire, 

[133] 



Jack O' Dreams 



Leaving weary, white-faced toilers in their stead. 

Once more the city flowed away 

Adown a cobbled road of grey, 
Its workshop lights behind it like a palisade of fire. 
(There was home, a spark of happiness ahead.) 

Oh, nothing but a poor old man from sunny Italy, — 
From the land where the purple grape-vines 
grow. . . . 
It may be — but his pack, it seems, 
Held somewhat more, and Jack o' Dreams 
Is what I call him. Were they dreams, or were they 
prophecy? 
(There were strange things in that pack, is all 
I know.) 



[134] 



UNDERGROUND 

LIFE prods us here so fast, so herded we, 
Men become moles and travel underground. 
It isn't pleasant: not just gay and free, 
But now and then, for all its obloquy. 
Sight comes to deeper depths down there, I've found. 

Take this, for instance; not so long ago: 

A little after flood, the tide still ran 

Full current of that human undertow, 

I wedged in with the rest, and to and fro. 

Took turns in breathing from a painted fan. 

Scant room enough — a picture-puzzle space 

I fitted in precisely; on one side 

A sulky Falstaff", grunting his disgrace, 

On the other, a shopgirl with hat-hidden face, 

Reading a paper opened very wide. 

Her hand, stretched out across my downward gaze, 
Unconsciously, to read, was mine for clue 
Of all her cloudy years and priceless days. 
She read the paper, I, the hidden ways 
Of nature, groping, blindly, to come through. 
[135] 



Underground 



A not too comely hand, red, rough and soiled; 
Nails not just clean, nor shapely; knuckles those 
Of one who takes hard knocks; a hand that toiled 
From childhood, and was wept on — not a spoiled; 
White heroine of leisure; not a rose. 

But kept its holiness through all, that told. 
Somehow, of what a woman's heart, deep down 
Makes mention of, in maiden wisdom stoled; — 
Of mother-hunger reaching out to hold 
A little child, for love to own, and crown. 

Was it the roundness, wedding thumb and wrist; 
The plump, full curve, completing the whole hand? 
Partly, I think, and something more, I missed — 
Too subtle to be gleaned — some moonlight-kissed, 
Faint, guarded goodness out of fairyland. 

Some dignity appealing for desire, 

Too rare for fleshly heart to write upon; 

Some star-tipped, icy pinnacle of fire, 

The sunrise points, and mariners admire, — 

Some nook of heaven no sooner seen than gone. 

A woman's weakness in that hand combined 
With what the world were lost for wanting of: 
Youth hardly yielded it for years to find. 
Down in those depths lay dreaming, half divined, 
That glory to light seas — a woman's love. 
[136] 



Underground 

And all this while, I have remembered her, 

And wondered ... by her cog-wheel world caught 

in. 
Poor and unmarried, would ripe nature stir, 
Or being balked, succumb to character 
And wreak slow vengeance where it could not win. 

A riddle, this, I have no thought to read. 

Only to bring to light; just to propound 

Once, and leave off: there may be who will heed. 

This much I take for truth, not faith or creed, — 

Goodness is better down there — underground. 



[137] 



A YOUNG GIRL SINGS 

WEAKNESS, perhaps. The anaesthetic fumes 
Die hard; and nausea dilutes courage more, 
Even, than pain — the little creeping pain 
That flickers here and there like northern lights 
Haunting pale polar stars. (Each new nerve cries.) 
It was, most likely, weakness. 

First there came 
Misgivings, ugly ones, the kind that blow 
A cold sea-fog on confidence; then fears, 
As when an army wavers; then, slow wings 
Dark-clustering on trees; the carcass — doubt. 
Memory disgorged, but, dog-like, took again 
The pallet-bed on wheels; the staff in white; 
The rubber cap to draw from; last, the fumes. 
Always, for sequel, furious revolt. 
That consciousness, the gallant blaze of things, 
The lighted loveliness containing all, — 
History, beauty, childhood, love of friends. 
The war in Europe, home, the noisy street, — 
Should dwindle, and they with it, all the world, 
For one thumb-pinch of vapor, to a spark 
Etching an aimless pattern on blank walls; — 
Spent fire in chimney-soot. Was life so small? 
[138] 



A Young Girl Sings 



Was death? . . . This argued it. (So gangrened 
doubt.) 

Came then an evening, full of sunset sky, 

That burned the brownstone cornices to gold, 

And tugged the sick-room curtains like a sail; 

Till life just breathed again. But listlessly, 

And leaden. Doubt still sank it. Then— oh, then — 

A voice, through open windows; a young girl's. 

High singing. Very soft, at first, and sweet, — 

Cool rill-notes before dawn and after rain, — 

But brimming, soon, and flooding fuller, soon. 

And breaking banks and overflowing, till 

It seemed, the room, the street, the city, aye. 

The very sunset, were caught up in song 

And thrilled it through and through like one great 

chord 
Triumphing. 

So a wave, up-wandering 
From drifted slopes beyond the ocean's rim. 
Filling its lap with stars, might heave the dawn, 
At last, with happy shoulders, on the land. 
And so might rumor come, of battle turn. 
At dusty noon adown a village street 
Deserted, dreading news: now pieced-out words, 
Incredible, through chinks in blinds, and now 
A populace at doorways, looking out. 
With tears and laughter for their dear land saved, 
On tattered flags, and cannon choked with grime, 
[139] 



A Young Girl Sings 



And faces — friendly faces! — bringing home 
Victory. 

Strange that God should come back so, 
And youth, and hope, and clinging happiness; — 
Just for a voice, a girl's voice. But, you see. 
It wasn't just a voice. Birds sing, and souls. . . . 
Life isn't small. And death? There is no death. 



[140] 



SONNETS FROM 
THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS 



THERE is a beauty, after all is said, 
Unreached forever. Not when music dies, 
And earth dissolves in rapture of deep sighs; 
Not by the dance, down glades of moonlight fled; 
Nor poetry, echoing death-chants to the dead, 
Is it unveiled: and yet, so near it lies, 
The lonely wanderer feels its faunlike eyes, 
And almost has it — by a turn of head. 
A rainbow spirit, tokened with unrest, 
It brushes wings, indues its deity. 
For half a glimpsing-time ; and then — is flown, 
A vanishing of rose leaves through the West, 
A shining prevalence wasting on a blown, 
Blue distance of pale, impermanent sea. 

Ill 

Like the soft changes in a woman's eyes 
Beside the fire, who, dreamingly withdrawn 
Down distant by-ways where her youth has gone, 
Now, chin in hand, makes happy enterprise 
Of memory; or like first spring that hies, 
[141] 



Sonnets from the Pursuit of Happiness 

With shadows of sweet April, up the lawn; 
So is the sea, immediate with dawn, — 
With one plumed planet scanning the proud skies. 
Into the deep subsides the living dark. 
And over it, just breathing, breaks the rose; 
Then a white wave-top, washing the far rim. 
Wakes, and the sea is lonely for one bark; — 
Lonely as beauty, lonely as love to him 
Who, fain to follow, knows not where it goes. 



When the blue sea is bitten with sharp wind. 
And gathers panic even as it goes. 
Right to the southward, bellowing its woes 
To the bare sky, I wonder if some mind 
There be not, far to land but intertwined 
With it, that crying, southward also flows, 
And in the swaying of a garden rose 
Leans beyond years to a lost love behind. 
And when the sea-light gradually dies 
From wave to wave, a grieving wanderer. 
It is, then, unto me, as if there came 
The quiet aching in a young lad's eyes — 
Expectant eyes, all glowing with young flame- 
Who sees his first love fade, and does not stir. 

VI 

A blink of sunlight on the cabin floor; 
A scouring-out of port-holes with wet sea; 
[142] 



Sormets from the Pursmt of Happiness 

Laughter on deck; a song along the lee; — 
The ships, the old, old ships, are young once more: 
Younger than Nineveh, younger than the shore 
Of blue-beguiled Iberia, or free. 
Imperial Knossos, skilled in victory; — 
Younger than these, yet olden long before. 
Butting the head-seas, joyous, once again. 
They clew close down and let their scuppers run 
With gusty muSic-chucklings, and bright foam. 
After them! — follow them! — galleon fleets of Spain, 
Beaks from the North, and triremes of great Rome! — 
Reached not the Happy Islands? — none? Not one. 

VII 

Like music stilled, that very far away, 
Goes treading, in the foot-prints of a tune; 
Or like pale twilight, sad for afternoon 
Lost, it was comrades with but could not stay; 
There is a singing waked, a gleam of day 
Divine and dying, when the romantic moon 
Walks with the lonely sea; a radiance strewn 
Of some great passing, none can mourn as they. 
Love is remembrance, an aroma rare 
Of some dear, doorway guest, who, hardly known, 
Smiled, and went on (we will not say, who died) ; 
Leaving her semblance on a turning stair. 
Forever after, tender — amid stone. 
Sea; moon; a third? Nay! — there is none beside. 
[143] 



Sonnets from the Pursuit of Happiness 

XII 

Like as an arrow, loosed against the night, 

Impales Capella of the Charioteer, 

Or lunges into Perseus like a spear. 

Proud and predominant in upward flight. 

Then, ere a single star has bloomed more bright, 

Feels courage dwindle, die, and disappear; 

So love leaps up, and so, in heaven's tier, 

Tainted with earth, slips backward from delight. 

There is a waywardness belying bliss, 

A warp against the current of all joy; 

A knock, inimical, upon the door, 

Forbidding rapture; a dark precipice 

That, cross who may, will not let laughter o'er;- 

A canker seeking rose-buds to destroy. 

XIII 

Spirits there are, intuitively great. 
Who will not own the serfdom of desire. 
But when the cinders of their first-blown fire 
Cease to be stars, and rain down desolate. 
Rise up, go forth, and eye to eye with fate, 
Of common, coarse-cut stone and tight-strung wire 
Make statues that are god-heads, and a lyre 
Whose lifted song long years reverberate. 
They hate the little limits that hedge in 
Joy, and the narrowness of each new day; 
[144] 



SoTvnets from the Pursuit of Happiness 

Despise old gifts, and out of raw defeat 

Rear their own heaven's roof for dreams to win; 

Making obeisance at a Mercy Seat 

Never more earth's. Then they too pass away. 

XIV 

As on cold window-glaze the sunset burns, 

Beyond a strait where grey-plumed seabirds cry. 

So, in carved sepulchres, the great dead lie 

Illuminate, long after funeral urns 

Have spilled their dust on centuries; returns 

Forever, so, a glory down the sky, — 

A lyric gladness each brave soul spread high. 

One stave above the stature thought discerns. 

Almost it is as if another air 

Were round these relics, full of cloudy gold 

And twilight tints, a different place and time, — 

Sequestered, like a quiet sea-cove, where 

Waves become dreams, and booming rocks, the chime 

Of distant church-bells indolently tolled. 

XIX 

When Da Vinci painted his Gioconda, so, 
He verged by stealth on Beauty's holiness, 
And would have had her naked truth, unless, 
Just as he came she had not chanced to go; 
Leaving him staggered, all his heart aglow 
With one, arch, backward look, one veiled caress, 
[145] 



Sonnets from the Pursuit of Happiness 

And one pale instant of the prophetess, — 
Blended and blinded in one smiling No. 
He wrote that smile along his lady's lips, 
Indelible, unfading; — flowerlike, rare 
And momentary mouth! Winds have gone by. 
Bearing baled merchandise on old-world ships 
Into a listening, luminous, lost sky. 
Lady, dead lady, art thou also there? 

XXIII 

Words are to dreams a wired and golden cage 

Wherein, made captive, some enchanting bird 

Is listened to for music that is heard 

In wooded freedom only; or a page 

Of butterflies, wing-spread for pilgrimage, 

But never, never flying, nor bestirred 

By happy preference: each printed word 

A theft from youth, all overgrown with age. 

Remembrance of a momentary bliss, 

The flash of wings when Beauty crossed the blue;- 

To speak — can arms encircle empty air 

And so enact the quiver of a kiss? 

Always that pain and always that despair: 

Yet there are hearts with singing all shot through. 

XXV 

A summer beach, warm drowsing; clean, wet sand 
With filling footprints; boys and girls and sea. 
[146] 



SoTmets from the Pursuit of Happiness 

Here, hose and shoon discarded, rapturedly 

They run the gauntlet; here, linked hand in hand. 

Adventure off their native bridge of land — 

Foam-deep to instep, ankle and then knee — 

To scurry home again in panic glee. 

With clothes caught high, and limbs all shining 

tanned. 
Beauty wafts inland, Love to seaward blows. 
And meeting, part, and parting, meet no more. 
One golden moment blended, they are still; 
In children, in the bud-break of a rose. 
The petals bloom, the childish zest burns chill: 
The wind is desolate upon the shore. 

XXVII 

Museum maunderings! A shelf of bones; — 
Old yellow skulls with matted hair and stain 
Of time's erosion; death's-heads with migraine, 
Set out to cool, so many fresh-cooked scones 
What of them? Measurements; cephalic zones; 
The long and short of them? Nay! — but again 
To kindle here a burning human brain, — 
A flickering spirit — on these altar stones. 
Somewhat was here, snuflfed out; some smouldering 

fire; 
Some incense not just earthly, so it seems. 
No mollusc this, a flaccid fill of shell, — 
But crowded to its roof -trees with desire. . . . 
[147] 



Sonnets from the Pursuit of Happiness 

Once through these windy corridors there fell 
The backward laughter of departing dreams. 

XXXII 

It may be Beauty walks in widening rings 

Forever, Love's first colloquy the stone; 

Truth is, perchance, the ebb-tide of the unknown, 

Laying old beaches bare of long-dead things; 

But life roots deep, and twenty thousand springs 

Suffice not for one garden fully grown: 

Dry drift of leaves; the birds' oak overthrown; — 

Next year the warbler in a new tree sings. 

Earth holds to life, impenitent of time 

Admitted — she a child then — once for all; 

Dreaming past failure, up the precipice 

Where, niche by niche, her seedlings lodge and climb; 

Her splendid strivings strewing the abyss, 

Exultant in the few that did not fall. 

XXXV 

Like singing in the sea-light, off the wane 
Of afternoon (when, weathered mainsails wide, 
The fishing fleet heads home, and overside 
Are chanties of the wet, entangled seine 
And shining catch in scuppers) is the pain 
Of Beauty's passage, wistfully descried; — 
The music of a dream-entinctured tide 
On shadowy ships, and a far-held refrain. 
Remembrance if there be of Beauty's face, — 
[14.8] 



Sonnets from the Pursuit of Happiness 

A groping-back for blind, lost lineaments 
The heart aches over, half regathering, 
It trembles from no earthly hiding-place; 
Some deep oblivion yields it, ring on ring, 
Haunting horizons. . . . Whence? I know not 
whence. 

XXXVI 

Love keeps the day — broken to stars — all night. 
There is such patience in it as prevails 
Beyond cool hours of sleep and sable sails 
To brimming basins of fresh morning light, 
And wearies-out the trip of death's despite 
Down world-old eaves. Love leans the scales 
That little from the level which yet quails 
The brow of Fate, the bronze and malachite. 
Love waits, great dreamer, and with face in hands 
Hears the faint moan of winds around the world, 
The lap of waves, the pebbles brooks wash bare, 
Heedful how slowly loose the swaddling bands 
From that hid future hovering in air; — 
Lily and leaf in one brown earth-bulb furled. 

XLII 

If it be true that flowers are very fair 
For sweet allure and tinctured marriage fee 
Of moon-white moth or brown, benignant bee 
With pollen on his back, and have no care — 
Despite a fragrance filling all the air — 
[149] 



Sonnets from the Pursuit of Happiness 

For such vain shapes of shadowland as we, 

Then in themselves they outreach artistry, 

And loved by one, are lovely everywhere. 

And we, warm human hearts, it may be, grow 

Beyond a beauty visiting on eyes 

For some desired endearing, to a power 

A thought more perfect than our pulses know: 

It may be in some slowly-opened hour. 

Bleeding at heart, we perfume Paradise. 

XLIII 

Music there is, deeper than melody 

Of meadow brooks or dust-blown serenade 

A creaking wagon comes on at up-grade 

Against the sunset, from shy woods won free 

By hidden hermit-thrushes; songs there be 

Whose based accompaniment no strings have played, 

Whose compass balks the seamost barricade, 

Where all the land is sung by all the sea: 

Beauty there is, beyond the glamorous foam 

Of apple-buds new breaking, or the stir 

A sudden star brings, rifting after rain, 

All ringed with drops from leaves, the quiet home 

Of water-lilies (Far it is and fain. 

And sad for beauty's sake), called Character. 

XLVII 

I know not if a better bloom there be 
Than this rough earth gives, being trodden down 
[150] 



Sonnets from the Pursuit of Happiness 

By wager of young feet in death's renown, 
On shining fields of breathless bravery: 
Unless it were some tight-lipped loyalty 
Drudging its days out in a home-spun gown; 
Tasting each drop of life's most bitter brown, 
And humming all the while, heart-breakingly. 
There is an answer, sworn to with the eyes. 
For every hint of Beauty's querying. 
Required, young loss? — a life is flung away; 
Sorrow? — a heart is forfeit and hope dies 
By inches; faith? — how beautiful are they 
That round a wounded cause come rallying! 

I. 

Not in the pith and marrow of men's bones; 
Not in the blood, nor penciled on the brain; 
A voice, yet not well heard; a dream, not plain; 
A music, intermingled with deaf tones; — 
There is an urge that enters in and owns 
Beyond the power of putting off again. 
A calling in the night, a stir of pain. 
Unrest and exile up wild mountain lones: 
There is a fealty affirmed so far. 
The adverse cunnings of a wintry sky 
Adread it not; it is too stout for fate. 
And is undaunted of men's eyes. They are 
Brief, life; frail, flesh; not good are we, nor great; — 
Show us where Beauty went, for she passed by! 
[151] 



Sonnets from the Pursuit of Happiness 

LIII 

Great winds are out : havoc is in the trees. 
So be it. Snuff the stars; unslip the rain; 
Let ruin run like blood. In vain, in vain! 
Comes courage in its cockle-boat, and keys 
Its pigmy voice above catastrophes, — 
Singing immortally its old disdain 
Of sudden death, enrapturing again 
Doom's ramparts with a choir of Victories. 
How beautiful that music is! How warm 
It strikes the heart! It is like reaching hands 
That grope beyond the stars, with faith to find. 
Happiness? Nay, I know not. As the storm, 
The singing gathers. Pain? He understands 
Who drinks of it. There is a dream behind! 

LIV 

I had a dream, once — was it lives ago? 
Beauty, the followed after, the first glint that went 
From charmed horizons of blue seas, was pent 
At last, a butterfly, and gazed on; so. 
Proven but Love, the abashed yet leaning low 
From sky-tops in grave woods, or deeply blent, 
In apple-blooms, with that old merriment. 
Sipped like a fragrance, dead worlds used to know. 
All is not loss: there is a dream behind. 
Made pitiful by loving. Death and pain 
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Sownets from the Pursuit of Happiness 

Deter not, but are climbed upon; the hour 
Breaks; the dream lives. It fades not; it will find! 
(I fling me prone before one startled flower, 
Breathless, and love's pursuit goes on again.) 

LV 

A factory in the fields, whose windows flare 
Unearthly, once a sundown; a drab door 
A blue-eyed barefoot sits and laughs before; 
A whistle down the railroad, going where? — 
So dreams begin. It is not far, nor rare, 
Yet tasting of it is to drink no more 
Sleep, or soothed limbs, or drowsy mandragore: 
But heartaches, and hurt fingers — these are there. 
The wind has need of us; the violets blow 
One hillslope yonder — still the old endeavor! 
Youth calls, and happiness is just ahead! 
Who lives to it? — the lonely wanderers know. 
There is a beauty, after all is said — 
And after all is sung — unreached forever. 



[153] 



THE GARDEN OF SLEEP 

BENEATH the sunlight and the wide, sweet skies, 
Immersed in purple shade, 
The garden of the well-beloved lies. 
And looses to the world through half-shut eyes 
Dreamings too deep to fade. 

Adown the sloping verdures of its breast. 

In long, unordered row, 
Are laid alike the lately-bidden guest 
And they that herein entered tnto rest 

A hundred years ago. 

And all alike perpetually share, 

Past understanding, peace; 
On all is shed the tranquilizing air 
Of easeful earth, and silence everywhere 

Has everlasting lease. 

They are securest, they that slumber here. 

And know no troubled sleep; 
Unvisited are they of fret or fear. 
Nor earthly perilings to them draw near 

Whom all the heavens keep. 

No passionate persuadings rim them round. 
With afterword of woe; 
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The Garden of Sleep 



No stir is here, no restless songs resound, — 
Save of the birds, and leaves that on the ground 
TTie changing seasons sow. 

They are unsorrowful, — Time's hurried feet 

No longer fashion pain; 
For in the years' inevitable beat, 
The loved and parted here once more may meet, 

And meeting, here remain. 

We call them dead, and weep that they must die: 

Ah, tenderness and tears! 
That lips on lips unanswered must lie, 
And warm entreaty fall without reply 

On once so heedful ears. 

We call them dead, that on the breast of sleep 

Beyond our borders go; 
Yet know we not what hovers in the deep, 
Dark-furrowed lineaments of Death, and weep 

Because we do not know. 

But I have seen the sunlight from the West 

Wane with the tide away. 
And watched the heavens, rosily distressed. 
Grow pale, and shed those tears of stars that rest 

Upon the fringe of Day: 

And I have trod the thunder-throated strand 
Of bright, perplexing seas; 
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The Garden of Sleep 



Looked into Summer's eyes and Autumn's hsnd, 
And heard a lover in his lover's land 
Of immortalities. 

These silent lips and unillumined eyes, 

All-eloquent of death, 
They too have learned of love, and waxed wise 
In that rare wisdom lingering in skies, 

Or in a flower's breath: 

They too have felt unutterable things. 

The sweet, half-prisoned flow 
Of high infinities; the poise of wings 
On ecstasies of song no poet sings; — 

More bliss than lovers know. 

And here they lie, the well-beloved, here, 

With cypress and with yew; 
They dreamed as I, and this, their sleep austere, 
Is but a severing, a soul got clear. 

And they . . . their dreams are true. 



[156] 



EPILOGUE* 

To cross no bar; to heed no lonely bell: 
Let me, like this, at twilight-sweet embark 
Where a faint river widens to the dark. 
And down the banks there follows a farewell. 

Let Beauty hold my finger-tips, this wise, 
With broken music of a wandering bird, 
Or, down a lane, a little laughter heard: 
Let me smell land after it leaves my eyes. 

Let me lie still, with starlight on my face; 

And shadows of great hills that loom ahead 

Shall write the dreams there of the unclouded dead. 

I shall not wake, but I shall know the place. 

Shoaling tho' shallows run; tho' years run low; 
A ship may take a lantern and get free: 
Till then — warm earth is very dear to me; 
Sure as the dawn the city where I go. 

* From Scribner's Magazine, August, 1920. 

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LIBRARY OF,CONGRK 



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